What Is ICE Really Doing In Airports?

Summary

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What A Day: “What Is ICE Really Doing In Airports?”

Host: Jane Coaston
Date: March 24, 2026
Guest: Andrea Flores (former DHS official, Securing America's Promise)

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Main Theme

This episode examines the recent deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to more than a dozen American airports during a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding shutdown. Host Jane Coaston investigates the real motives behind this move, its impact on airport security and travelers, the conflation of immigration enforcement with TSA duties, and the broader political maneuvering underpinning these decisions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: Why is ICE at Airports?

• DHS Shutdown Fallout: The ongoing DHS shutdown, stemming from a budget standoff in Congress, has left TSA agents unpaid and airport security lines massively delayed.
  • “ICE agents arrived in airports across the country on Monday, reportedly to help TSA agents...” (03:06)
• Trump Administration’s Move: President Trump directed ICE to "help" at airports, citing an idea floated on a conservative radio call-in show, then promoted on Fox News:
  • “It’s not a good sign when the Trump administration is getting policy ideas from callers on conservative radio shows.” (02:07)
• Explicit Political Motivation: Trump’s public posts reveal the move is about targeting undocumented immigrants and retaliating against political opponents, not aiding travel.
  • “...everything to do with punishing, quote, radical left Democrats.” (02:18)

2. Guest Interview: Andrea Flores on the ICE–TSA Mashup

What is Actually Happening?

• Illogical Deployment: ICE and TSA have totally different missions and training. Placing ICE in TSA’s role isn’t helpful or effective.
  • “It’s just a big, distracting stunt that also is really, really scary for people who have seen ICE take the lives of US Citizens and round up their neighbors.” (03:26, Andrea Flores)
• No Clarity on Directions: Even insiders don’t know what ICE is being asked to do, other than a vague promise to “help” at airports.
  • “Nobody has any idea because Trump said they’re going to help. He also said they would be doing immigration enforcement.” (05:57, Andrea Flores)
• No Relevant Training: ICE agents lack TSA’s knowledge of airport security protocols. They’re not equipped to make operations smoother.
  • “There is absolutely zero training that is applicable to helping people move through the airport in a safe way that ICE agents receive.” (05:57, Andrea Flores)

Political & Social Impact

• Purpose is Intimidation: ICE presence, particularly targeting people of color and immigrants, creates fear and confusion rather than efficiency.
  • “...there are millions of people of color, Latinos, who go through, and they still have a right in that role to ask people about their immigration status.” (06:40, Andrea Flores)
• Potential for Dangerous Outcomes: Flores warns that public confusion, armed officers, and long lines are a recipe for harmful enforcement.
  • “Crowds, long lines, confusion about authorities, law enforcement, armed officers. These are not good elements historically in our country at all.” (07:35, Andrea Flores)
• Democratic Unity: Noteworthy political development: Democrats are more united than ever in demanding ICE funding be reconsidered, forcing Republicans into a negotiating corner.
  • “Democrats, I’m going to say, have been surprisingly united in this plan to single out ICE funding.” (08:48, Andrea Flores)

Normalization of Abusive Tactics

• Slippery Slope to Broader Enforcement: ICE’s expanded presence could normalize aggressive immigration enforcement, even for people playing by the rules.
  • “There’s a normalization happening with some of these immigration enforcement tactics... he is doing two things. He’s targeting undocumented immigrants... But he’s also growing the undocumented population by essentially saying it doesn’t matter if you played by the rules.” (09:32–10:15, Andrea Flores)
• Threats to Legal Immigration: Cases before the Supreme Court could further curtail immigration protections and legal status for many.
  • “We have the birthright citizenship case in the Supreme Court. Will Trump successfully end birthright citizenship?” (10:38, Andrea Flores)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Policy by Talk Radio:
  “It’s not a good sign when the Trump administration is getting policy ideas from callers on conservative radio shows.”
  — Jane Coaston (02:07)
• On ICE’s Utility in Airports:
  “It’s so ridiculous to think that ICE would have any help right now in terms of the airport wait times we’ve been seeing.”
  — Andrea Flores (03:26)
• On Political Motivation:
  “He wrote in part, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents to the airports where they will do security like no one has ever seen before including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants... with a heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
  — Quoting Trump, Jane Coaston (02:25–02:35)
• On the Slippery Slope:
  “I think there’s a normalization happening with some of these immigration enforcement tactics. And so I’m watching for how it changes and how the disappearance of our neighbors and the tactics get quieter but even more effective and bigger.”
  — Andrea Flores (09:32)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:06–01:21: DHS shutdown context; ICE sent to airports
• 02:07: Trump policy inspired by a conservative talk show caller
• 03:04–11:33: Full interview with Andrea Flores on ICE’s role at airports
• 05:57: Flores on how no one has any idea what ICE’s orders really are
• 06:40–07:35: Discussion of fear and confusion for travelers caused by ICE
• 08:48: Flores on surprising Democratic unity regarding ICE
• 09:32–11:28: The normalization of aggressive immigration tactics and the legal implications for immigrants

---

Additional Headlines (Brief Mentions)

• Iran Negotiations & Market Manipulation:
  Trump’s public claims about talks with Iran allegedly shift oil and stock markets for political/economic leverage. (16:00–18:41)
• Supreme Court on Mail-in Voting:
  The conservative majority appears poised to restrict counting of mail ballots, with potential large-scale impact on access to voting. Rep. Jamie Raskin weighs in. (18:58–21:26)
• Meta (Facebook) Lawsuit:
  Jury deliberates on whether Meta misled users about youth safety and engagement on its platforms. (21:42–22:26)

---

Overall Tone & Takeaway

The episode is sharply critical, fact-focused, and darkly witty, with Jane and Andrea using both expertise and a healthy level of incredulity to dissect the administration’s maneuvers. The insertion of ICE into airports is exposed as a political tactic designed to intimidate and distract rather than solve genuine security problems—a move that, if normalized, could have lasting negative impacts on immigration policy and civil liberties.

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“What a Day is about cutting through the noise. And today’s noise is, quite literally, ICE agents standing awkwardly at airport terminals while America’s immigration debate reaches a fever pitch.”

Transcript

[A]

Foreign

[B]

March 24th.

[C]

I'm Jane Coston, and this is what

[B]

a Day, the show that is gleefully reading about the expenses from the Buffalo centric ads that outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem filmed at Mount Rushmore. According to a statement from Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch and Connecticut Democratic Senator

[C]

Richard Blumenthal, Noem's ad required $20,000 in

[B]

horse rentals, nearly $4,000 in hair and

[C]

makeup, and, and most confusingly, $500 to

[B]

a South Dakota magic store.

[C]

Yes, a magic store. On today's show, President Donald Trump pulls

[B]

back on his threats to escalate the war in Iran. Shockingly, money may have been his motivating factor. And the Supreme Court looks ready to

[C]

limit mail in voting. Who needs the Save America act when

[B]

you have the highest court in your back pocket? But let's start with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ice. It's been more than a month since the Department of Homeland Security shut down,

[C]

and American airports are definitely feeling it. So in hopes of fixing yet another

[B]

issue his administration created, Trump has sent

[C]

ICE agents to at least 14 airports

[B]

across the country to do something. But what is not exactly clear.

[C]

You may have heard that the White

[B]

House directed ICE to airports to help overburden TSA agents. I can even tell you where Trump

[C]

may have gotten the idea from an exchange on Friday's episode of the syndicated

[B]

radio show the Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Here's Travis explaining on Fox News.

[D]

I had a caller on the show, the Clay and Buck show today, Charlie. It had an interesting idea. What if President Trump announced that ICE agents were now going to be supplementing TSA agents inside of all of the airports? The ICE agents are still being paid. How quickly would Democrats panic if he said, hey, we're going to put some ICE agents in line with the TSA help to expedite everybody. And oh, by the way, if we think you might be an illegal when you're coming through to try to get on an airplane, we're going to go ahead and arrest you at the airport, too.

[B]

It's not a good sign when the Trump administration is getting policy ideas from callers on conservative radio shows.

[C]

And if you read Donald Trump's True

[B]

Social post on Saturday where he first threatened to send ICE agents to airports,

[C]

you know his decision had nothing to do with making life easier for travelers

[B]

and everything to do with punishing, quote, radical left Democrats.

[C]

He wrote in part, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents to

[B]

the airports where they will do security

[C]

like no one has ever seen before including the immediate arrest of all illegal

[B]

immigrants who have come into our country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia. In other words, ICE isn't there to

[C]

help you get to your gate sometime

[B]

before the end of the decade, even

[C]

though some security lines at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport are reaching five hours. So, to talk more about what ICE

[B]

agents are doing at American airports, I spoke to Andrea Flores. She's a former Homeland Security official and founder of the pro immigration initiative, Securing America's Promise. Andrea, welcome to Water Day.

[E]

Thanks for having me.

[C]

ICE agents arrived in airports across the country on Monday, reportedly to help TSA agents with their duties amidst the DHS shutdown. But ICE and TSA are very different agencies. So does this decision make any sense to you? Is airport security something that ICE agents could realistically help with?

[B]

I can't believe I'm even asking you this question.

[E]

I can't believe you are either, because it's so ridiculous to think that ICE would have any help right now in terms of the airport wait times we've been seeing. And it's just a big, distracting stunt that also is really, really scary for people who have seen ICE take the lives of US Citizens and round up their neighbors. And I just think it's a big distraction from other issues right now that Trump doesn't want us to think about.

[C]

I want to back up just for a second, because we've seen the photos of long security lines. We've read the reports of agents quitting because they aren't being paid. But, like, at a baseline level, what TSA does and what ICE does are so different. How could this possibly cross over? What is ICE being told that they are doing in airports?

[E]

It's such a good question. And to back up even, like, a little bit further, when the Department of Homeland Security was created after 9 11, there was this idea that immigration enforcement and airport security should go together, right? Because airports are what we call official ports of entry, where there's security to monitor people and goods moving through into the country. But ICE has grown a massive amount, as has the Border Patrol. And so these two agencies, even though they're in the same big agency, have kind of eclipsed a lot of what TSA has done in terms of resources and size and scope. And so what has happened is, because Democrats have successfully shut down funding for dhs, right now, the administration is claiming they can't pay their TSA agents. And so TSA agents are calling out, they're not getting paid. They're under duress. But Democrats have also said, we'll completely fund tsa. And Republicans have said no. The White House has said no. We want billions of more dollars for ICE in the Border Patrol. So I want people to understand it's a choice right now that TSA is not funded and that the lines are long.

[C]

Over the weekend, border czar Tom Homan essentially told CNN how hard could airport security be? Which, I'm not a huge fan of tsa, but I would find that extremely insulting if I were a TSA agent. He also said that ICE has already been at airports across the country for a long time, but I want to drill down on, like, yes, I'm sure ICE has been at airports across the

[B]

country because, as you've mentioned, airports are ports of entry.

[C]

But what is ICE being asked to do now that TSA currently isn't able to do because of the shutdown?

[E]

Nobody has any idea because Trump said they're going to help. He also said they would be doing immigration enforcement. Then you get Tom Holman, the borders are coming in and saying, well, figuring out a plan. And then Americans wake up to ICE agents. It seems like they're outside of the zone of tsa. They don't seem to be making anything run faster. And to your point, there is absolutely zero training that is applicable to helping people move through the airport in a safe way that ICE agents receive.

[C]

Yeah. Like they're not the people reminding you to put everything in a bin or to take off your shoes or that you don't need to take off your shoes. Like, I've just seen photos of people standing there, but maybe you've seen more.

[E]

I've been trying to learn more, and I also have seen people standing there. And I think Americans have to ask why? I mean, because, look, we've never seen DHS turn into what we'd call the worst nightmare of when it was created. Right. Which is that it would act as a federal police force against our citizens for functions that it was never supposed to act on. And in this case, now they're in airports where there are millions of people of color, Latinos, who go through, and they still have a right in that role to ask people about their immigration status. So any idea of pretending that they're just there to help tsa, I think we should be suspicious of.

[C]

Right. I thought it was also very telling that President Trump said on Truth Social on Monday that the ICE agents in airports shouldn't wear masks. And I'm like, oh, it seems pretty telling that, you know, that wearing a mask is inherently scary and threatening and that you shouldn't do that in the airport and maybe you shouldn't do that anywhere else.

[E]

The White House right now refuses to fund TSA because they do not want to take masks off of ICE right outside of airports. This is, this is how absurd their logic is getting, right? We want to wear masks outside on the street, but we'll take them off at airports. I mean, isn't the doxing threat the same this made up threat that immigration enforcement has never before needed to wear masks and now they're keeping DHS shut down and TSA unpaid? Like none of this makes sense. But I am very worried about what could happen because all the elements of people being at risk to extreme enforcement actions are there, right? Crowds, long lines, confusion about authorities, law enforcement, armed officers. These are not good elements historically in our country at all. And I'm worried about people moving through these spaces.

[C]

Absolutely. Especially because you already have people who are under immeasurable stress and that is because they are at an airport. But my question is, do you think this will put more pressure on Congress to come to an agreement to open dhs given that, as you've mentioned, Democrats have already said we will fund tsa,

[B]

we will fund the Coast Guard, you

[C]

just have to make these changes to how ICE functions.

[E]

Democrats, I'm going to say, have been surprisingly united in this plan to single out ICE funding. And I think that's unique because frankly, they hadn't been united on immigration before this moment. And so I'm not quite sure what will happen. But I do think it is exposing in the White House negotiation that they're in just how much the White House isn't meeting them at the basic minimum of like where Senator Cruz, Republican, Senator Kennedy, Republican. They're saying, why don't we just fund tsa? I think it's putting more pressure on Republicans and that's not wishful thinking because I used to work for Democrats. I just think it's actually putting more pressure on Republicans right now.

[C]

As someone who is an immigration policy expert, what will you be watching for in the coming weeks and months?

[E]

So when you look at how this year started, it started out in such an extreme way and I think that was somewhat intentional by this administration. Right. Because we saw thousands of agents in one city and that was extreme and it never happened. And now we see hundreds of agents in Minneapolis and we're like, great, it de escalated, but we've never had 100 agents or more in one city like that just patrolling. Same here in D.C. where I'm at the national guard was sent in August. Now I'm used to them. Right. I think there's a normalization happening with some of these immigration enforcement tactics. And so I'm watching for how it changes and how the disappearance of our neighbors and the tactics get quieter but even more effective and bigger. Right. More people sitting in detention, more deaths in detention. More, more warehouses be turned into detention centers. More people losing legal status. We have the birthright citizenship case in the Supreme Court. Will Trump successfully end birthright citizenship? The next case after that is, will Trump be successful in taking legal status from over 300,000 Haitians in this country? So those things are not the kind of shock and awe of enforcement in the streets, but they're life changing and they're community changing. And what I want people to understand is that he is doing two things. He's targeting undocumented immigrants, many who have been here a long time and who previously Republicans wanted to legalize. But he's also growing the undocumented population by essentially saying it doesn't matter if you played by the rules. He's trying to penalize people who applied for green cards, who tried to get naturalized and that it's a paradigm shift in this field. Right. Because it's not so simple anymore. As will Democrats support immigration reform if they win back power. Now it's a question of what kind of immigration system will they have to rebuild in the first place. And that is a moment we haven't been in in modern times in the immigration space.

[C]

Andrea, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

[E]

Thank you.

[B]

That was my conversation with Andrea Flores, ex Homeland Security official and founder of Securing America's Promise.

[C]

I am not a fan of long lines or really flying in general, but

[B]

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here's what else we're following today.

[I]

Head of Lines

[C]

I'm joined by Crooked's Washington correspondent Matt Berg to talk about the big stories. Hey Matt.

[A]

Hey Jane.

[C]

So Matt, Trump says that Iran is negotiating with the US Even though Iran says there aren't any talks at all. Here's what Trump had to say about the latest alleged US Negotiations with Iran while also blaming slash, crediting secretary of war slash little boy Pete Higseth for starting the war.

[J]

Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said let's do it because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. So we are now having really good discussions. They started last night, a little bit the night before that.

[C]

Matt, you know things aren't going great when Trump starts to not take credit for something, which he does here. But Trump on Monday announced that he's postponing strikes on Iranian power plants for five days and that special envoy Steve

[B]

Witkoff and son in law extraordinaire Jared

[C]

Kushner are in talks with the Iranians. His statements came after he promised to hit Iran's energy infrastructure like 10 seconds ago. Now what led to this change of heart? Let me guess, it had something to do with money.

[A]

That seems to be the rationale here. But again, no one really knows what's going on. I've been covering foreign affairs for a few years now and I just have never seen a moment where everyone is collectively so confused on what the president is saying. Basically, Trump says that his envoys, Wyckoff and Kushner held talks, but shortly after he said that, the parliament leader tweeted that it was, quote, fake news that Trump is using to, quote, manipulate the financial and oil markets. Trump told reporters that a potential deal with Iran, would prohibit nuclear weapons and could even involve regime change, which does not seem like it's gonna happen anytime soon. He also said that Iran wants to, quote, settle the war again. Iran has not showed any intention of that. And so that's kind of why people are not sure what's going on. And the bottom line here is, is the president of the United States, and throughout our entire history, that has meant something during war, when the president says a big statement that has the potential to move markets, and we don't even know if he's telling the truth anymore.

[C]

Speaking about markets, Trump's announcement about those groundbreaking talks just happened to come right before the stock market opened on Monday. And the theory among a lot of experts is that Trump made a big threat over the weekend when markets are closed, and then he pulls back right before they open. In the near term, it works. The price of oil fell and stocks rose, but by the end of the

[B]

day, those gains slowed because these negotiations

[C]

may or may not be happening at all.

[A]

This also kind of just shows where Trump's brain is at. It's like what matters the most, it seems to be, is how the markets do and maybe not exactly what the truth is. Again, maybe he is completely telling the truth, but I don't think a lot of people are thinking that at the moment.

[C]

In other news, the Supreme Court's conservative majority appeared skeptical of allowing mail in ballots to be counted in a handful of states after Election Day during oral arguments on Monday. Millions of Americans rely on early or

[B]

absentee voting to cast their votes, including Republicans.

[C]

But Trump hates the practice because Democrats vote through the mail more often than Republicans. And of course, he's obsessed with voter

[B]

fraud, which isn't actually a real problem.

[C]

Here's what Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law expert, told you about the case on Monday.

[K]

The states know how to run elections, and the rule has always been in lots of states that you've got to mail your ballot in. If you're using a mail in ballot before election Day. And if you do and it arrives the day after Election Day or the day after that, it's still counted in the process. And it's very hard for me to see how that's a matter of federal constitutional law or why there should be this major question kind of departure from what the traditional understanding has been. They're trying to put the right to vote in a straitjacket and they're trying to squeeze a lot of people out of the electoral process.

[C]

Matt, should we be freaking out about the Midterms yet?

[A]

I wouldn't go that far, exactly. I mean, there's a lot of things that are happening right now, and a lot could also happen before November or just not happen at all. So, for instance, a ruling on this is expected by late June. And I mean, the conservative justices could change their minds on what this means and how far reaching it could be. But at the same time, there's problems with the United States Postal Service right now. Last week, the Postmaster General warned that USPS could run out of cash within a year if Congress stopped president allow it to borrow more money. And that has raised concerns about mail in votes being on time. Trump is also effectively trying to bully Republicans into passing the SAVE Act. As we know, that could, by some estimates, disenfranchise millions of people. Here's what Jamie Raskin says Republicans are up to.

[K]

They've got no way to appeal to the public, so their whole plan is to shrink the electorate and make it more difficult for people to vote. That is a. A dreadful maneuver in a democracy where we should be upholding and celebrating everybody's right to vote and the right of everybody to get their vote counted.

[A]

And so what I just said. And what he just said does sound, you know, pretty panicky. But a very important point here is that Trump has tried all these things and he has not succeeded yet in any of them, and he very well may not.

[C]

Something else I've been watching.

[B]

The jury is now deliberating in a trial over whether Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, has been mislead users about the potential impact of social media on children.

[C]

The prosecution in the case in New

[B]

Mexico, which is where the case is

[C]

taking place, argued that Meta was aware

[B]

that children on its platforms were vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

[C]

But Meta targeted children for engagement anyway. Meta's lawyers dispute these claims and say the company incorporates protections for teens. But they acknowledge they can't always catch absolutely everything immediately. Now, New Mexico prosecutors are asking the jury to fine the company more than $2 billion for consumer protection violations, which sounds like a ton of money. But for Comparison's sake, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is worth about $210 billion.

[A]

Yeah, that is a drop in the bucket compared to all the cash that he is rolling in. But, I mean, in serious note here, the impact of this case could be huge. Historically, tech companies have been protected from liability for things that people post on their platforms. But the thing that's different with this is that prosecutors aren't really arguing that Meta should be held accountable for things posted online. It's more about, you know, algorithms that push out this addictive material. If you've ever been on TikTok or Facebook or anything, you understand that that algorithm works in mysterious ways. Courts are often the ones to hold companies accountable when Congress is too slow. And Congress has been extremely slow when it comes to regulating social media companies at all. I don't know what the solution here is to teach lawmakers about TikTok, vine or whatever, but I don't know if I want to see them doing the floss or the nae nae anytime soon.

[C]

Matt, I I want to welcome you to 2026. No one flosses anymore. But Matt, thanks so much for hanging out.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[C]

And that.

[B]

Before we go, I love surprises as

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[C]

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[J]

taken him in a fight?

[C]

I don't know.

[B]

You might.

[D]

I think he would have been respectful enough to let you in.

[L]

Yes, he probably would.

[C]

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Check it out and [e-mail] subscribe I'm

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Jane Coaston and what are we even doing here?

[B]

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Foer. Our producer is Kaitlyn Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Jutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We have production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Overman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[F]

Quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted

[G]

if you said yes to both? Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.

[F]

And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco, and we're the

[G]

hosts of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture and not losing their minds in the process.

[F]

We break down the news, call out the nonsense and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms and everywhere. The stakes are high.

[G]

It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero hand holding.

[F]

Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.

[M]

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