Meet the T-ICE-A. With airport checkpoint lines snarled by a shortage of Transportation Security Administration officers, President Donald Trump says he will deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to…well, actually, it is somewhat unclear what they will be doing.
Border “czar” Tom Homan told CNN on Sunday that the administration was still “working on a plan” to send ICE agents to America’s airports.
“Certainly, a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit. Make sure people don’t go through those exits, enter an airport through the exits and stuff like that, relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines,” Homan explained. “I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because [they’re] not trained in that.”
An ICE agent refrains from doing something because of a lack of training and official protocol? That certainly would be news.
The Reason Roundup Newsletter by Liz Wolfe Liz and Reason help you make sense of the day’s news every morning.
All of this seems unwise. Airport security lines can be high-stress environments at the best of times. Adding some masked, unaccountable, trigger-happy thugs with a reputation for unnecessarily harassing and detaining people while disregarding their legal status and/or constitutional rights seems like a catastrophe just waiting to happen.
On the other hand…
Send ’em. Let’s see how travelers like interacting with armed and masked federal police with zero oversight and accountability. Takes ICE off the streets and exposes their misbehavior to even more Americans. pic.twitter.com/0S0xrFO0wG
— The Alex Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) March 22, 2026
I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. The mess at America’s airports is very real—and ICE itself is significantly to blame. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been shut down for more than a month because Democrats in Congress are withholding funding until the Trump administration agrees to restrain the ICE tactics that led to the deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis earlier this year.
No DHS funding means TSA agents aren’t getting paid. Yes, they will almost certainly get back pay when this is resolved—but in the meantime, many agents are apparently not showing up for work. The TSA is patriotically committed to standing between Americans and any terrorists who wish to do us harm—just as long as it’s not too inconvenient, you see.
The situation is likely to get “much worse” in the coming days and weeks, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during an interview on Sunday.
And Reason’s Billy Binion got a firsthand look at things while trying to get on a plane in New Orleans:
I’ve never seen anything like this. This is the New Orleans airport. The line begins far before I started filming. Everyone around me is expecting to miss their flights. All because Congress can’t figure out how to do its job. pic.twitter.com/S4aWajKzwl
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) March 22, 2026
The obvious solution here is the same one that has existed for a long, long time: Abolish the TSA and allow airports and airlines to provide their own security services that won’t be affected by a budget debate in Washington. Short of that, heavily privatizing TSA so it can’t be used as a pawn in a government shutdown would be good.
But don’t worry, folks, ICE agents are here to help. Somehow. Once they figure out what it is they are supposed to do.
Iranian Ultimatum. Just hours before a deadline set on Saturday, Trump announced Monday morning that strikes against Iranian power plants would be postponed by at least five days due to “good and productive” conversations aimed at a “total resolution” of the ongoing conflict.
If carried out, the threat Trump issued on Saturday night would represent a major escalation of the conflict—and would likely trigger a similar escalation from Iran.
Trump just threatened to bomb all of Iran’s power plants if Iran doesn’t open the Straits within 48h.
We know Iran will not comply with this threat.
If Trump follows through on his threats, Tehran will likely strike at energy facilities throughout the Persian Gulf as well as in… pic.twitter.com/068pI1x08X
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 22, 2026
That threat is all the more unsettling because Trump had declared on Friday that the U.S. does not “use” ir “need” the strait. That’s certainly not true—just check the price of gas today if you think America is isolated from the consequences of Trump’s war—but the president’s occasional impulse to declare victory and get the hell out of Dodge is clearly the best of a set of bad options.
Meanwhile, I can’t decide what’s more insane: that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) has so much foreign policy influence over an administration that is supposedly anti-war, or that Graham thinks this is a compelling argument for sending Americans to die in Iran:
Lindsey Graham on Kharg Island: “We did Iwo Jima. We can do this.” pic.twitter.com/JQJ5lZdvJ8
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 22, 2026
As a reminder, the Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest parts of the Pacific campaign during World War II. More than 6,800 Americans died, and more than 19,000 were wounded. Even if you view those losses as tragic but necessary sacrifices in the context of that war, no one should be eagerly anticipating the next Iwo Jima—and the prospect of such a bloody fight should give even the most hardened Iran hawks a moment of pause.
Trump has a long history of throwing allies under the bus once he pivots towards a new course of action. Let’s hope Graham gets that treatment soon—it might save thousands of American lives.
Scenes from Washington, D.C.: In this space on Friday, Peter Suderman told you about a new pop-up bar sponsored by the online prediction site Polymarket and themed around “monitoring the situation.”
If you bet on it being a total disappointment, congrats!
Monitoring the “monitoring the situation” monitor situation https://t.co/NtI8Mthr6M
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) March 20, 2026
Honestly, the whole thing seems like a perfect (if unintentional) metaphor for the current state of things in Washington—a city obsessed with the circular publicity of its own pseudo-events and where everyone in charge of anything seems to be actively grifting or just making it up as they go.
The only screen that works at the polymarket bar in DC is the big globe in the center of the room and that’s all anyone is looking at. #monitoringthesituation pic.twitter.com/Lj4Obuj3gQ
— Spencer Allan Brooks (@SpencerSays) March 20, 2026
Remember: Logging off is always an option.
Trade expert Colin Grabow thinks we should just be able to buy and use ships from our allies. https://t.co/TKwZjvgQW5 pic.twitter.com/Ocv6WWjMWw
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) March 23, 2026
