Amid a situation where a plane slammed into a truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York, killing two pilots and injuring dozens, hundreds of TSA agents are walking off the job, and hundreds more are outright quitting.
The partial government shutdown has led to a staffing shortage at TSA, with over 400 officers quitting since mid-February. Although President Donald Trump ordered TSA workers to report to work and promised he'd 'never forget them,' Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expressed concern that TSA officers can't buy groceries and pay mortgages on $0 paychecks and are seeking other jobs.
In this environment, a fire truck was crossing the tarmac at LaGuardia late Sunday, and slammed into an airplane. Per the AP, an air traffic controller can be heard on airport communications frantically telling the fire truck to stop.
Roughly 20 minutes after the tragedy, the controller appears to blame himself. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier,” the controller said. “I messed up.”
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, told The NY Post it sounded like one person may have been directing both local air traffic and ground control.
While that situation was singular, travelers across the country are facing long lines and delays at airports as the partial government shutdown grinds on. Passengers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston were warned it could take more than four hours to get through security.
At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, one flier said, "It is actual chaos. I've never seen anything like it."
For his part, President Trump announced plans to send ICE agents to replace missing TSA officers. He argued it would get the lines moving again, but the decision was criticized by many, including the American Federation of Government Employees.
“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement on Sunday. “TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints—skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification.
“You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap,” he added. “It creates one.”
While many wondered if it was a good idea to send armed workers with no TSA training to airports, the president likened the idea to one as simple and fantastic and inventing the paper clip.
COLLINS: Who's idea was it to put ICE in airports?
TRUMP: Mine. That was like the paperclip. Do you know the story of the paperclip? 182 years ago a man discovered the paperclip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked it thought, 'Why didn't I think of that?' ICE was my… pic.twitter.com/iAdv3z7SC3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2026
The president added during the conversation that he didn't think it would be appropriate for ICE agents to wear masks in airports.
