President Donald Trump said on March 22 that he will deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports on March 23 to help Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents manage security checkpoints.

“On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on March 22. “The great [White House border czar] Tom Homan is in charge!!!”

Trump said that he would send immigration agents to airports on March 21 after the Senate failed to advance a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been in a partial shutdown since Feb. 13.

The lapse of funding has caused people who work in agencies under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, Customs and Border Protection, ICE, and the Coast Guard, to work without pay.

“Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all,” Trump wrote.

Trump did not say which airports the ICE agents would be deployed to but said agents are “ready to go.”

A series of airports have faced long security checkpoint lines due to a shortage of TSA staff.

The Trump administration has placed border czar Tom Homan in charge of the ICE deployment that will kick off on March 23.

“I’m currently working on the plan now, [the] execution, working with the director of ICE and administrator of TSA, the active administrator, so we‘ll put together a plan today and we’ll execute tomorrow,” Homan confirmed on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Homan said that ICE agents had received a high level of security training and that many were already assigned at airports across the country before Trump’s announcement.

“They do a lot of investigations, criminal investigations, and smuggling reports [at airports],” Homan said.

He said the ICE agents would take responsibilities that would provide relief to TSA agents such as guarding airport exits and providing extra security.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because [they’re] not trained in that, but there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing [and] we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs [to] help move those lines,” Homan said.

Homan said that he will have a plan in place by the end of March 22 and that he wants to prioritize airports that have had long wait times.

Airports in Atlanta, Houston, and New York City have experienced long delays in recent days as more than 400 TSA agents nationwide have quit since the partial shutdown started.

“Due to current federal conditions, passengers are advised to allow at least 3 hours or more for domestic and 4 or hours or more for international screenings,” the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wrote in an advisory on its website on March 22.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has even offered to step in and pay TSA staff.

“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk wrote in a X post on March 21.