PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will be leaving Philadelphia International Airport on Thursday, according to budget testimony from the airport’s interim CEO.
Airport chief Tracy Borda said the ICE agents deployed at PHL during the Transportation Security Administration funding crisis were professional and helpful, assisting with lines and reminders about being ready at TSA checkpoints; they were not masked and did not take on a law enforcement role. But with operations returning to normal, they are no longer needed.
“We’re at a point where, we’re told, as of [Thursday], we won’t have any more ICE agents at the airport. They should be gone,” she said.
Borda said Philadelphia was lucky compared to some other big-city airports, where lines took hours to navigate.
“Our relationship with TSA has been really positive,” she added. “We had some of the lowest callout rates that were experienced across the country, so we never saw some of the wait times that were being witnessed.”
Borda said Philadelphia International suffered no economic setbacks during the seven weeks that TSA was unfunded.
