Homan: TSA Agents Being Paid; ICE Remains in Airports for Now

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees will get paychecks this week after President Donald Trump's order that they be paid, White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday, but he was not clear about when, or if, federal immigration officials will be pulled out of the nation's airports.

"We'll see," Homan told CNN's "State of the Union." "It depends on how many TSA agents come back to work, how many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plans [of] coming back to work."

Homan said he spoke on Saturday with new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and there is a plan to get paychecks to the TSA agents by Monday or Tuesday.

He added that he's working with acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons to determine what is needed to keep the airports operational.

The ICE agents, Homan said, are working hard to keep airport security at a high level because of the heightened threat the nation is in with the ongoing Iran conflict.

McNeill said during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week that 480 TSA officers have quit their jobs since DHS lost its funding on Feb. 14. More than 1,100 officers left their jobs as well during last year's government-wide shutdown.

Homan, also appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," told host Margaret Brennan that ICE agents will remain in place at the nation's airports until the facilities feel that they are "100% in a posture where they can do normal operations."

"If fewer TSA agents come back, that means we'll keep more ICE agents there," he said.

"The president has been clear. He wants to secure those airports… ICE is there to help our brothers and sisters in TSA. We'll be there as long as they need us."

But even with the TSA getting paid, Homan stressed that other vital DHS employees, including those with the Coast Guard and Secret Service, remain unfunded, and he called on members of Congress to vote to restore the funding.

Democrats in Congress are refusing to approve the DHS funding measure without significant changes to the nation's immigration system, mainly with ICE.

"They want to talk about, you know, immigration policies," Homan said. "We can talk about that. But why do you got to hold the rest of the DHS hostage to do that?

"Let's sit down and talk. I've been talking to them for the last two weeks."

Meanwhile, Congress remains on a two-week recess, which Homan blasted.

"The American people hold Congress responsible," Homan told Brennan. "They're on vacation right now while tens of thousands of DHS employees aren't being paid."

And even though Republicans hold the majorities in the House and Senate, it was the Democrats who shut down the DHS funding, Homan insisted.

"They simply won't fund DHS, because they want to change ICE policies, so ICE is less effective in the interior," Homan said.

"Remember why we're here. We're here because the last four years of an open border, millions of people are in this country illegally, many public safety threats, national security threats, and we're out seeking them and arresting them.

"And they simply don't like ICE enforcing the law."

Homan took over ICE operations after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, leading Democrats to call for change.

"The bill they're holding up right now actually gives $120 million to buy more cameras," Homan said.

"I've already talked to them. They want to talk about policy and legislative policy. Look, if they want to change the law, change the law. We're enforcing laws they enacted."

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, also want changes made so immigration officers can't enter a private home, and Homan said that "we're already in discussions on that."

He added that he speaks with Mullin several times a day to work on policy moving forward, but it's also up to Congress to establish new laws.

"If they don't like the law to allow us entry into the home, then change the law," he said.

"They want an arrest warrant to just arrest an illegal alien. There's nothing in federal law that says that. Matter of fact, the law that Congress wrote says you can arrest an illegal alien with an administrative warrant. That's what the federal statute says."