At least a dozen unmasked ICE agents were at IAH on Monday, mostly talking to each other and directing passengers to the TSA security line, which started downstairs near the baggage claim. Their presence didn\u2019t exactly look like the cavalry swooping in to save TSA; one agent spent half an hour outside near the shuttle dropoff taking his dog for a potty break. <\/p>\n
The federal officers said they were not authorized to speak to the media. It was unclear how long they\u2019d be stationed at the Houston airports. While much of the media attention focused on the presence at IAH, an Uber driver said Monday she\u2019d also seen federal agents at Hobby early Monday morning. \u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ICE-agent.jpeg\")
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent stands ready to answer questions for travelers at IAH on Monday. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n
At IAH on Monday, CLEAR \u2014 a pre-paid fingerprint scan that allows travelers to skip the traditional check-in line \u2014 was not operating and TSA pre-check was available in Terminals A and C only until 10:30 a.m. Terminal D is closed. Travelers with questions about their flights were encouraged to contact the airline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Richie arrived at IAH two hours early for a 7:35 a.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale. He missed it, saying that an airport employee approached him in the line shortly after 6 a.m. and said, \u201cI\u2019m not even going to take your bags because you\u2019re not going to make it through TSA in time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told us they didn\u2019t have enough TSA workers to check our bags in time for us to leave,\u201d said Richie, who was traveling with his friend Bob on what was meant to be a quick weekend trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Three young women who spent their spring break last week in Houston arrived at IAH at 6 a.m. for an 8:24 a.m. Frontier flight to Orlando, and say they were told something similar. The group of girls had never met Richie and Bob before but commiserated together at the airport\u2019s Subway sandwich shop on Monday morning, trying to figure out how they were going to deal with missed work and paying for a hotel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Airport-lines.jpeg\")
Travelers waited up to three hours to go through a TSA security line on Monday morning at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n
The airlines were helpful in rescheduling the missed flights, all parties said, but no one\u2019s going to cover their hotel rooms or lost wages. \u201cIt\u2019s been like this for two weeks, right?\u201d a girl named Rose asked. \u201cIs it just because of spring break?\u201d<\/p>\n
None of the spring break travelers were aware of the partial government shutdown or that there were ICE agents in the airport. \u201cOh, the ones in the brown and green [vests]?\u201d they asked. When told that the TSA agents weren\u2019t getting paid, Richie said, \u201cWe gotta be extra nice to the ones who are here because they\u2019re showing up for free. If you\u2019ve got bills to pay and you go months without getting paid, you\u2019ve got to figure out a side hustle.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The shutdown started on February 14 but the airport delays spiked in early March after TSA agents missed their first full paycheck. A man named Umar told the Houston Press his family came to Houston for the World Baseball Classic earlier this month. Their return flight on a Sunday night was canceled and they weren\u2019t able to leave until the following Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reuters reported<\/a> Friday that FAA data show smaller Texas airports could close permanently if the shutdown doesn\u2019t end soon. Houston\u2019s Hobby Airport is already experiencing long lines and checkpoint closures, but the potentially vulnerable airports \u2014 in Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Laredo, Killeen, College Station, Waco and Tyler \u2014 either have just one TSA checkpoint or rely heavily on consistent demand and airline service to stay viable.\u00a0<\/p>\n U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said last week he believed \u201cyou\u2019re going to see small airports shut down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n No one knows when the partial shutdown will end, but it\u2019s apparent that there\u2019s frustration from both political parties. House Democrats on March 18 announced a \u201cdischarge petition,\u201d a legislative tool that allows a majority of members to force a bill to the floor for a vote, even if the Speaker of the House opposes it. The measure would fund all of DHS except for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe effort comes as Democrats continue to demand reforms to ICE and CBP as federal agents have arrested and killed U.S. citizens, entered homes without judicial warrants, and used excessive force against people across the country,\u201d U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, said in a press release. \u201cRepublicans have refused to consider these reforms, leaving DHS unfunded and forcing federal employees to work without pay while using funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to continue paying tens of thousands of law enforcement personnel at ICE and CBP to carry out the President\u2019s mass-deportation agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n If Republicans are serious about \u201csupporting civil servants rather than using them as bargaining chips,\u201d they\u2019ll sign the petition and vote to fund departments like TSA, Fletcher added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Republicans, including Trump, have said they won\u2019t pass any funding bill until Democrats approve a bill that requires people registering to vote to show proof of U.S. citizenship.\u00a0<\/p>\n The National Republican Congressional Committee launched a paid advertising campaign<\/a> at IAH and San Antonio International Airport, \u201ctargeting Democrats or shutting down the Department of Homeland Security and forcing TSA agents to work without pay while Americans endure hours-long security lines.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHouse Democrats shut down homeland security while TSA agents work for free and Americans sit in hours-long security lines. It\u2019s pure insanity, and voters won\u2019t forget who betrayed them,\u201d said NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Houston Airports referred questions about ICE to DHS but said that the city-owned airport system is working closely with TSA to monitor checkpoint capacity in real time, adjust passenger flow and provide on-site customer service support. The Houston Food Bank and the nonprofit Wings of Compassion<\/a> are helping provide meals and other assistance to the TSA agents who are working for free.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Randall got to George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Monday, three hours before his flight to California was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4046,4092,145,1857,5416,226,56,58,57,30022,4024],"class_list":["post-218699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-bush-intercontinental-airport","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-donald-trump","tag-government-shutdown","tag-hobby-airport","tag-homepage","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-immigration-customs-enforcement","tag-tsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DHS-at-airport.jpeg\")
Department of Homeland Security agents at IAH on Monday weren\u2019t wearing masks or arresting people but didn\u2019t seem to be doing much to move TSA lines any faster. Credit: April Towery<\/p>\n