Trump threatens to ‘move ICE agents to airports’ in explicit threat over DHS shutdown

President Donald Trump warned Democratic lawmakers Saturday that unless they approved funding for the Department of Homeland Security “immediately,” he would send Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports across the nation where they would “arrest” any undocumented migrants they encounter.

The federal government has been partially shut down since February after Democratic lawmakers refused to fund DHS in protest of the violent immigration enforcement operations carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency under DHS. Democratic lawmakers demanded reforms to ICE before funding the agency, demands that Republicans rejected.

“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“[The security will include] the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota. I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports.”