The list of security-related tasks being undertaken by ICE agents deployed to assist TSA agents at U.S. airports has expanded to include identification checks. Meanwhile, security lines were once again extremely long in select airports on Thursday, though lines in many airports are normal.
"After receiving standard TSA training curriculum, ICE officers are guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures," acting assistant Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Lauren Bis said in an email statement Thursday morning.
"The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster," Bis said.
Now in its fourth day, the ICE deployment has expanded to 16 airports according to Gate Access, a blog that focuses on TSA issues. Gate Access author Caleb Harmon-Marshall, a former TSA agent, said that he had reviewed an internal memo from a senior TSA leader stating that ICE agents will be conducting ID checks at those 16 airports for at least the next seven days.
The DHS has declined the list the airports to which ICE agents has been assigned, though it said that hundreds of ICE officers have been deployed nationwide.
According to a list obtained by ABC News, 14 of those airports are Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare Cleveland, Fort Myers, Houston Hobby, Houston Bush Intercontinental, New York Kennedy, New York LaGuardia, New Orleans, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and San Juan.
TSA agents are working without pay during the DHS shutdown, which is now in its sixth week. Callout numbers have spiked over the course of the shutdown, though they've held steady this week.
On March 25, 11.14% of TSA officers called out. The highest rate of the shutdown so far was 11.76% on March 22, the DHS said. The highest callout rates on March 25 were in Atlanta, Houston Bush Intercontinental, New Orleans and Houston Hobby, with the rate at each being at least 31%. In Atlanta, more than 40% of TSA officers called out, according to the DHS.
Early Thursday afternoon, security lines were at least three hours at Bush Intercontinental, according to the airport. Atlanta had lines averaging two hours and fifteen minutes, according to the website TSAWaitTimes, which assimilates reports from travelers.
Atlanta and Bush Intercontinental have been hot spots during the DHS shutdown, leading hub carriers Delta and United respectively to waive fare differences for rebooking from those airports.
Other large airports have much better situations. For example, LAX was reporting wait times of three minutes late Thursday morning local time for standard screening, and Denver Airport was reporting lines of no longer than five minutes shortly after noon local time.