On Monday, March 23, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will begin working at airports across the country. “Border czar” Tom Homan announced this Sunday morning on CNN’s State of the Union. Which airports exactly — still undecided. According to Homan, the plan is being finalized right now.
A day earlier, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he would send ICE agents to airports if Democrats refused to unblock funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Hours later, he followed up: ICE deploys Monday. His exact words — “GET READY.”
The context is straightforward. A partial DHS shutdown has been running since February 14 — five weeks. Roughly 50,000 Transportation Security Administration employees — the people who screen your bags and check your ID — are working without pay. According to DHS, more than 400 of them have quit since the shutdown began. On Friday, 51.5% of TSA staff at Houston Hobby Airport didn’t show up — that’s the agency’s own figure. CNN’s tracker showed the security line in Atlanta exceeding two and a half hours on Sunday morning. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned on CNBC: if the shutdown continues, some airports will have to close.
What ICE agents will actually do at airports
Homan laid out the mechanics on CNN. ICE agents will not screen passengers — they aren’t trained for it. TSA officer certification takes several months. According to Homan, ICE will handle support tasks: guarding exits, directing foot traffic, managing lines. The idea is to free up trained TSA officers to work the scanners.
TSA union representative George Borek in Atlanta is skeptical. He told CNN: the president can send whoever he wants, but he doesn’t see how it helps. ICE agents are law enforcement. They were trained to apprehend people, not to manage passenger flow.
In the same Truth Social post, Trump added another task for ICE — arresting undocumented immigrants directly at airports. He wrote separately that there would be “special focus on people from Somalia.” NBC News, CNN, Time, and Al Jazeera all confirmed the content of the post.
Three Bay Area airports — three different situations
For Bay Area residents, the key question is what happens at SFO, Oakland, and San Jose. The answer depends on where you’re flying from.
San Francisco International Airport is the exception. SFO is one of 20 airports in the country where screening is handled not by federal TSA employees but by private contractors. Since 2002, Covenant Aviation Security has held the passenger screening contract at SFO. The standards and procedures are identical — TSA oversees them. But contractor salaries come from pre-allocated federal contracts and are not affected by the shutdown.
SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel told the Associated Press: lines at SFO haven’t grown, and staff are being paid. According to Yakel, contract funds were allocated in advance and continue flowing without interruption. The same arrangement held up in the fall of 2025, when the country went through a record 43-day shutdown.
Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (formerly Oakland International) and San Jose Mineta International Airport are a different story. Both rely on federal TSA employees. In Oakland, union representative Joseph Cerletti told NBC Bay Area: his last paycheck was for a few hundred dollars. He has three kids, a wife, and a pet.
Cerletti’s colleagues who commute from Antioch and Tracy can no longer afford gas. According to him, every TSA worker at Oakland airport he knows has been receiving food bank deliveries for the past three weeks — brought directly to the terminal.
No mass resignations in Oakland yet, but sick calls are rising. Lines are growing. ABC7 reports the situation at San Jose is similar — long screening lines show no sign of easing.
Why the shutdown won’t end
The impasse is in the Senate. Democrats are refusing to fund DHS without ICE reform. The reason: two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January. On January 7, an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renée Good. On January 24, Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti. The Hennepin County medical examiner ruled Pretti’s death a homicide. Videos of both incidents spread across the country. Since then, Democrats have demanded that agents be barred from wearing masks, that arbitrary arrests stop, and that independent oversight be established.
Republicans are blocking a counter-proposal — funding TSA separately from ICE. On Saturday, according to NBC News, the Senate voted on a Democratic bill that would have unlocked pay only for TSA. The result: 41 to 49. Strictly along party lines. The only Democrat who voted with Republicans for full DHS funding was Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
ICE itself doesn’t need the money. According to the Washington Times, the agency received $75 billion through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 — funding secured through 2029. The ones going without pay are TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Secret Service — everyone except the agency Democrats blocked the budget over.
Musk offered to pay TSA. Lawyers aren’t sure he can
Saturday morning, hours before Trump’s post, Elon Musk wrote on X that he would like to cover TSA salaries during the funding standoff. The wording was cautious — “would like to offer,” not “I am paying.”
Senator Fetterman called the offer “incredibly generous” and added that TSA workers across the country are surviving on food banks and donations. Legal experts cited by The Hill note that federal law prohibits outside payments tied to official duties. Musk proposed no specific mechanism.
What this means for Bay Area
If you’re flying out of SFO — screening lines are unaffected by the shutdown. Private contractors are operating normally.
If you’re flying from Oakland or San Jose — arrive at least two hours before your flight. Use TSA PreCheck if you have it. The MyTSA app, which normally shows wait times, is not updating during the shutdown. Global Entry has been suspended by DHS.
Whether ICE agents will appear at Bay Area airports is still unknown. According to Homan, the airport-specific plan will be ready by Monday morning. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries warned on CNN that untrained ICE agents at airports will create chaos. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana acknowledged that ICE could help with crowd control but would not solve the underlying problem.
The next TSA payday is March 27. That’s five days away. If workers miss another check by then, Oakland and San Jose will lose more staff — and spring break is just picking up speed. In the words of Transportation Secretary Duffy, what’s happening now, compared to what’s coming, is child’s play.