ICE Invades Airports Across the US

Over the last 24 hours, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have invaded airports across the United States. At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, videos and photographs show ICE agents standing next to security screening lines. At Chicago’s O’Hare airport, ICE agents are scattered around check-in counters, according to videos shared online. At Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, ICE officers were seen walking through the main United Airlines terminal, wearing vests that said “ICE.” And at San Francisco International Airport, multiple videos show what appear to be plainclothes law enforcement officers forcibly detaining a young woman as dozens of onlookers watch and film. One of the eyewitnesses who captured the incident at San Francisco’s airport tells WIRED she began filming after hearing a “horrible” scream while walking to her gate. The woman, who did not want to be named due to privacy concerns, said it appeared that “two unidentified men” were grabbing “a woman trying to hold onto her child.” In other videos of the incident, officers from the San Francisco Police Department who arrived at the scene appear to create a blockade between the individuals arresting the woman and the onlookers. “It was absolutely horrifying to witness and I felt sick to my stomach,” the eyewitness told WIRED. “I didn’t sleep last night once I got home.” A spokesperson for San Francisco International airport confirmed to NBC San Francisco that federal agents detained a woman at the airport on Sunday, but said it was unrelated to the wider deployment of ICE agents to airports. The ICE agents are ostensibly at these airports to assist with long security lines caused by the partial government shutdown. Thousands of Transportation Security Administration agents have gone without pay since the end of January, and many have stopped showing up to work or quit as a result.