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Watch: ICE agents at Atlanta airport as DHS shutdown continues
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have deployed to major airports across the country, helping to fill the void as thousands of security staff who are going without pay refuse to work.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees are increasingly absent, having not received pay in weeks due to a partial government shutdown that began on 14 February.
Their absence has created huge queues and hours-long wait times at airport security checkpoints. More than 3,400 TSA agents called out of work on Sunday.
On Monday, White House border tsar Tom Homan said hundreds of ICE agents had been deployed to 14 airports in cities including New York, Atlanta and Houston.
Photos of the agents showed them at New York's John F Kennedy airport and Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia, among others.
But they were not wearing masks or face coverings as they have done elsewhere.
"I'm a big believer that they should be able to wear masks when they go and hunt down, you know - murderers, criminals, and others," President Donald Trump said to a gaggle of reporters on Monday.
"But for purposes of the airport, I've request that they take off the mask," he said. "I didn't think it was an appropriate look for an airport."
At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, 42.3% of TSA staff called to say they would be absent on Sunday, and at Hartsfield-Jackson, 41.5% of staff called out, according to figures obtained by the BBC's US partner CBS.
More than one-third of staff called out sick at three other airports the same day, including George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in Houston, Texas, and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Airline passengers at some airports on Monday were told to arrive at least three or four hours early to allow time for expected delays.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said wait times have become so long that travellers are "sleeping in the airport" to avoid missing flights.
In a letter sent to Congress on Monday, over 100 airport leaders signed a statement saying they were "deeply concerned about the growing operational disruptions".
"The impacts of the shutdown are significant, growing, and potentially long-lasting," the letter sent by Airports Council International said. "We urge you to take action to immediately end the shutdown."
Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl said ICE agents would be at airports to "help support" staff in "non-specialised security functions", freeing TSA agents to focus more on "aviation security specifically".
"We are hoping they can be a force multiplier," Stahl said, in an interview with Fox News.
Homan, meanwhile, said over the weekend that ICE agents would support crowd control and would not be directly involved in screening passengers.
The deployment of ICE agents to American airports is happening amid a decline in public support for the agency over its immigration enforcement activities.
Trump has said the agents could make arrests.
"They're able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That's very fertile territory," he told reporters. "But that's not why they're there. They're really there to help."
But Derrick Johnson, the head of civil rights organisation NAACP, criticised the move.
"They are inadequately trained, armed, and instructed to profile people based on race and accent," he said in a statement to the BBC.
"What could possibly go wrong? We've seen this movie before."
Democrats in Congress have refused to fund DHS without new curbs on immigration agents, who sparked public outrage after shooting dead two US citizens in Minneapolis.
There is little sign that the funding standoff is close to being resolved. Republicans have rejected Democratic proposals to fund TSA while negotiations over ICE reforms continue.
Trump instructed Republicans on Sunday not to agree to a deal that would have funded all of DHS except ICE, as he seeks to rally support behind his voter ID bill.
Meanwhile, DHS employees, including TSA and other agencies, will continue to go without pay.
On Friday, TSA agents will miss their second paycheck, according to federal pay schedules. That is also the last day Congress is scheduled to be in session before a two-week recess begins.
