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“The View” co-host Sara Haines said on Monday she is not against the idea of ICE agents filling in as the government shutdown impacts TSA.
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would be deployed to airports across the country to help ease travel chaos brought on by the ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
Tens of thousands of TSA agents have been forced to work without pay for weeks as the shutdown draws on with no end in sight. It’s led to hours-long delays at airports across the country, with images of massive security lines dominating the news.
“I don’t actually hate the idea of this right now,” Haines said of ICE agents filling in to help airports. “ICE has gotten billions of dollars, they have almost doubled their budget. We’re talking about TSA workers who aren’t getting paid and the ones that are making it there are having to pay for gas prices and riding buses.”
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“And so if you want to fill in bodies here,” she continued, “because their success rate at finding criminals has been 5%. These are 100% guaranteed travelers coming through there, so I just feel like putting more people on the job, I don’t see that as a bad thing.”
“You mean, you want to feel safe when you take your kids to the airport?” guest host Abby Huntsman quipped. “It’s crazy we’re spending billions of dollars on a war right now, what’s going on in Iran, and we can’t even feel safe in our airports, and Congress is still getting paid!”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, however, argued that she is not comfortable having ICE agents working in airports, arguing they not only have less training, but undergo completely different kinds of training that differentiate from TSA agents.
“I don’t feel comfortable at all having ICE agents there, because ICE agents, instead of getting 72 days of training, they only get 42 days of training, and they are not trained the way TSA agents — let’s remember TSA agents require four to six months of training, including two to three weeks at a TSA academy,” she said.
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She argued further that such training “includes x-ray simulation, passenger screening, bag inspection, emergency protocols, and then they have to get recertified every couple of months. An ICE agent with 42 days of experience wearing a mask and no body camera has no business in our airports. I’m sorry.”
Haines disagreed, however, arguing that ICE agents will not only be better behaved in airports than in immigration raids, but have also made major concessions regarding Democrats’ concerns.
“Sunny, I disagree. First of all, I will say they are more dangerous undertrained on the streets than they are in the airports I would say, but also, I definitely see the politics on both sides, but Democrats need to realize that perfect — don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” she said.
She then followed by arguing, “They have compromised. They’re doing expansion of body cameras. Markwayne Mullin agreed during his hearing to do the warrants when they’re searching unless it’s an emergency.”
Ultimately, Haines argued, TSA workers need to get paid.
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Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
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