{"id":238885,"date":"2026-03-27T07:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T07:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/238885\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T07:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T07:37:13","slug":"not-what-i-expected-san-jose-airport-unaffected-by-tsa-lines-ice-deployments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/238885\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Not what I expected’: San Jose airport unaffected by TSA lines, ICE deployments"},"content":{"rendered":"

AS TRAVELERS EXPERIENCE CHAOS,\u00a0lines trailing around terminals and federal immigration agents in major airports across the country,\u00a0San Jose Mineta International Airport remains calm and void of\u00a0agents.<\/p>\n

Travelers breezed through security lines in San Jose Monday as\u00a0President Donald Trump ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a>\u00a0(ICE) to more than a dozen major airports, including Houston\u2019s William P. Hobby Airport and New York City\u2019s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Trump claims ICE agents \u2014 who were unmasked \u2014 were there to alleviate long lines amid\u00a0Transportation Security Administration<\/a>\u00a0(TSA) staffing shortages due to the\u00a0Department of Homeland Security<\/a>\u00a0budget standoff that has led to a\u00a0partial shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the San Jose airport said they have not received any notification of ICE personnel coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThus far, operations and wait times have remained normal here at SJC during the partial government shutdown,\u201d airport spokesperson Julie Jarratt told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

Natalia Yamkovaya, 39, arrived at San Jose\u2019s airport hours before her flight, worried it might be impacted by long TSA lines. To her surprise, the airport was relatively empty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not what I expected,\u201d Yamkovaya told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"\"Natalia Yamkovaya arrived at SJC hours before her flight, worried that it might be impacted by TSA staffing shortages. To her surprise, the airport was relatively empty. (Joyce Chu\/San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight)<\/p>\n

While TSA agent have gone without pay\u00a0during the partial shutdown, ICE agents continue to be funded by the\u00a0$75 billion<\/a>\u00a0it received through Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d passed last summer.<\/p>\n

Santa Clara County resident Jane Winkler flew into\u00a0San Jose Mineta International Airport<\/a>\u00a0on Monday from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She encountered no issues at either\u00a0airport, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel great that ICE isn\u2019t in this airport,\u201d Winkler told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cICE is too intrusive now. I am of Hispanic heritage and I would like it if they don\u2019t stop me. I don\u2019t think they have a place here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traveler Dustin Jolley, 47, said his experience at SJC was drastically different from his family members\u2019 experience in the Houston airport. He received text messages from them about three-hour long waits and ICE agents fanning the airport. Wait times at some airports like Houston were\u00a0up to six\u00a0hours<\/a>, according to news reports.<\/p>\n

Jolley said he\u2019s not opposed to ICE agents helping alleviate the crowding at airports, but he\u2019s unsure if that\u2019s what they are actually doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith some of the controversy with ICE lately, it leaves you questioning some of their modus operandi,\u201d he told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

Yamkovaya said it\u2019s upsetting to know ICE agents are being deployed to airports.<\/p>\n

\u201c(You) feel like you can\u2019t leave your house because they can be anywhere, and it\u2019s unfair,\u201d she said. \u201cThe country of the free is no longer free because people have to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact Joyce Chu at\u00a0joyce@sanjosespotlight.com\u00a0or @joyce_speaks on X.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AS TRAVELERS EXPERIENCE CHAOS,\u00a0lines trailing around terminals and federal immigration agents in major airports across the country,\u00a0San Jose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5172,18168,18914,5776,14,5528,88,90,7158,89,881,198,29701],"class_list":["post-238885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-airports","tag-aviation","tag-flights","tag-homeland-security","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-enforcement","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-mineta-international-airport","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-spotlight","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-travelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}