As the Department of Homeland Security shutdown enters its seventh week, the administration has pivoted to a controversial fix: It’s deploying hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to 14 major airports to plug the gaps left by unpaid TSA officers who are calling out or quitting.
It happened to Andy Lundberg when he was flying recently from Kansas City to Baltimore on Southwest Airlines. A Transportation Security Administration screener pointed him to the PreCheck line, where he waited behind a dozen other frequent travelers with the agency’s trusted traveler designation.
When Barbara Leary went through the full-body scanner at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport recently, her hip replacements set off the alarm. She was directed to another line, where she underwent a physical search by a Transportation Security Administration agent.
