While Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were dispatched to more than a dozen airports across the U.S. last week, none has been assigned to Lehigh Valley International Airport.
“ABE does not have ICE agents to assist with operations,” airport spokesperson Colin Riccobon told The Morning Call on Monday.
The Trump administration deployed ICE agents to 14 airports across the country as security wait times ballooned because of a partial government shutdown that began Jan. 31. That list included Philadelphia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
The list consisted of mostly larger airports, with the smallest one being Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida.
ICE was called to help beleaguered TSA agents at those airports as wait times to clear security have had travelers waiting several hours.
On Monday afternoon, LVIA’s website reported the wait time for its TSA checkpoint was 1 minute.
TSA personnel have worked without pay since Feb. 14, when the Department of Homeland Security lapsed because of a dispute in Congress over federal immigration operations.
As the record-long partial government shutdown went on, hundreds of officers called out of scheduled shifts, which was enough to cause hourslong wait times and closed express lanes at airports in Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans and New York, as well as Philadelphia.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday instructing the Homeland Security secretary to pay TSA workers after House Republicans rejected a bill passed by the Senate early Friday that would have funded the TSA, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
TSA agents were scheduled to be paid as early as Monday.