100 signatures reached
To: Trump administration
No ICE agents at airports!
Instead of working with Democrats’ bipartisan solution to the government shutdown, Trump is sending ICE agents to major international airports to intimidate passengers and staff. Federal agents with guns marching through our airports is yet another example of our country’s rapid descent into authoritarianism—and we won’t stand for it.
Trump is trying to bully Congress into passing his budget that would further inflate the Department of Homeland Security’s budget, giving more money to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as they terrorize, abuse, and violate the rights of people across the country.
American taxpayers don’t want any more of our money to go to ICE's cruel and inhumane agenda—and we don’t want agents creating chaos at our airports.
Why is this important?
Tens of thousands of U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers have been impacted by the partial U.S. government shutdown, the second unpaid work stoppage in six months. More than a third of TSA staff at airports in Houston, New York City, and Atlanta have been absent or called in sick—affecting travel. In some places, people have had to wait up to six hours for their flights, standing in line for hours.
Already, ICE agents have been deployed to major airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. It’s reported that agents are expected to be sent to 14 locations total across the country, including Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Houston.
ICE agents do not have specialized training for airport security—they are simply not qualified to do the job that TSA staff have been hired to do. Trump has destabilized our global relations and foreign policy, and is making our airport security weaker at the same time. It’s a dangerous and reckless situation. We should be paying the people specially trained to keep our airways safe—not wasting taxpayer dollars for Trump to send ICE to our airports and intimidate passengers and staff.
The American people have been clear: we disapprove of Trump’s inhumane immigration raids and we do not want additional funding for ICE’s brutality and unchecked violence. The government is shut down because elected officials are doing their job—listening to the people they represent and demanding no additional funding for ICE. But Trump is trying to jam through his unpopular budget anyway.
The shutdown is causing a crisis at our airports—but ICE agents aren’t the answer. We need every single elected official to be working tirelessly to end the shutdown, pass a budget that puts our families and communities first, and bring federal employees back to work NOW.