ICE agents were deployed to airports around the country on Monday, including at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby Airports, after nearly 500 TSA agents quit.

The Trump administration has expanded the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at some US airports, moving them from support duties into parts of the passenger screening process as staffing shortages strain the Transportation Security Administration.

Those activities are largely a departure from the roles ICE agents had been performing since Monday at other major airports.

ICE agents are assisting TSA workers as Congress keeps haggling over how to end the partial government shutdown that has driven mounting staffing shortages and the longest security wait times ever.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were seen in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia on Wednesday morning, March 25, as local news reported that earlier “travel

Yolanda Keaton, TSA officer and union steward, discusses why she thinks the ICE agents’ presence in airports is a “smack in the face.”

Trump is sending ICE agents to fill a TSA officer shortage during the government shutdown, but a major federal union warns this could create safety risks.

Nearly 12% of all TSA officers who were scheduled to work on Sunday called out — the most since the start of the partial government shutdown.