ATLANTA — Monday marked the first day travelers were met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers inside airports across the country, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Lines for security Monday morning topped four hours long, with some passengers reporting waits even longer, forcing airport officials to stop keeping an official wait time count visible inside the airport and on the webite. Instead, a blanket four-hour warning was given to all travelers hoping to catch their flight.

The idea when President Trump deployed ICE and DHS to our nation’s airports was that the immigration officers would be able to assist TSA officers with getting through security faster. This would in turn cut down the wait time as officers continue to call out of work in their second month of working without pay.

But as you walked around the airport Monday, most of the ICE officers you could see were standing around in groups, sitting in the small food court grabbing a bite to eat or a coffee break, or even watching airport staff struggle to direct lines without stepping in.

Here’s what we saw.

What was ICE doing inside the airport?

Between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday, USA TODAY did not observe ICE officers or DHS personnel interacting with passengers inside the airport. Officers were instead spotted standing on the second floor of the baggage claim area observing the winding lines from above, standing in small groups near the entrance of the terminals chatting among themselves, or even sitting in the small food court area outside the TSA checkpoint having coffee, eating or looking at their phones.

In one instance outside the food court’s Auntie Anne’s restaurant, a group of three officers with “Department of Homeland Security Police” on their vests crossed an open area behind a group of passengers that were being moved to another line.

When the passengers reached a member of airport staff, the staff member said they couldn’t join the line there, and instead had to go around another restaurant to the back of the line. The passengers pushed back and said they had been told by another staff member to enter here. While the conversation became slightly heated, the DHS officers stood along the railing of the sitting area and watched the interaction. They did not engage in the conversation, step in to redirect the passengers or back up the airport staff member.

Another group of officers spotted near the entrance of the north terminal early in the morning were seen moving to new spots to stand every hour or so, again not interacting with passengers. The group talked among themselves, spoke with officers from other agencies as they passed and with airport staff standing near the check-in desks.

Over the course of five hours, USA TODAY observed an ICE agent interacting with a passenger just one time. A woman asked an agent if she was standing in the general boarding line or the TSA PreCheck line, to which the officer answered “this is general boarding.”

USA TODAY was not able to observe the actual TSA checkpoint, but photos and videos posted by passengers on social media show ICE officers standing behind the TSA officers while they checked identification before sending travelers through the security screening.

This matches what sources told Reuters on Monday.

“For now, ICE personnel will not be deployed in areas behind airport security checkpoints because they lack the specific clearance needed,” ‌the outlet reported.

This means that while they may have a very visual presence in the terminals outside TSA in Atlanta, you’re unlikely to see ICE officers sifting through your bag or giving pat downs as nearly 40% of TSA officers call out of their shifts.

Whether their role will evolve as the shutdown continues remains unclear.

What do travelers think of ICE in Atlanta airport?

“Yeah, we saw them everywhere. They’re outside the doors, they just walk past, a few of them, and I don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Hopefully they’re helping,” Saad Hassan, a 32-year-old from Virginia who was traveling with his band, said. When asked if he had seen ICE officers interacting with any passengers or helping the lines, Hassan said “no, nothing. Not that we saw.”

Other passengers echoed what USA TODAY observed inside the airport.

When asked if he had seen ICE in the airport, Maddox Gates said yes, but that he hasn’t seen them interact with anyone other than fellow ICE officers. Gates is originally from Atlanta but now lives in New York City and was traveling home with his debate team.

“It feels kind of like a photo op, I don’t know, posturing,” he said. “Now they want to come, mask off, when they’re kind of seen in the caricature of like, being helpful, but when they want to do snatch-and-grabs, like they are doing at SFO (San Francisco’s airport), I saw families that had already made it through security were harassed and detained, and so it’s kind of like we want to see their face when they’re the good guys, but not during the rest of all the structural violence they’re imposing.”

Gates wasn’t the only one that noticed ICE officers were not wearing masks as they wandered the airport.

“No I haven’t seen any snatch-and-grabs so far, but at least their faces are not covered. Be a man. Uncover your face,” Ronnie Lee Taylor said while waiting in the general boarding line. When asked whether ICE officers should uncover their faces during other operations, Taylor answered “I believe so. Yes, coming from an extensive military background, I think they should uncover their faces.”

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, President Trump said he would “greatly appreciate” if officers chose not to wear masks while they were deployed in U.S. airports.

However, he said he was a “BIG proponent” of the officers wearing masks during their other duties, according to the post.

Is ICE helping or ‘just in the way’?

Border Czar Tom Homan told SiriusXM on Monday that he expected protests from the ICE deployments in airports, and there has been pushback already not just from passengers but from representatives of TSA.

“We’re going to first send out to the biggest airports with the biggest wait lines. I don’t want to give the specific airports right now because what’s going to happen is we have massive protestors out there and we want to start this out low-key and without fanfare,” Homan said. “So they’re deploying this morning across the country to the biggest airports with the biggest wait lines.”

Aaron Barker, president of the TSA union representing workers in Atlanta (AFGE Local 554), however called the deployment a “recipe for disaster” in an interview with CNN.

“You know, we have extensive training, as you just stated. And it takes months to be able to — and even after months of training, there’s still things that you encounter that you don’t see every day or situations that arise that don’t come up every day. So, to just throw them on the checkpoint like that, I think that that is a recipe for disaster. It’s going to create chaos,” Barker said. “In Atlanta, there are people already out there directing the lines and directing passengers to navigate the airport. I don’t think that that helps. I think that would probably put more passengers on the edge, just from my experience and talking with family and friends, I don’t think that’s a welcomed thing there by the traveling public.” 

TSA officers criticize ICE presence amid airport turmoil

TSA officers say ICE agents are adding confusion as staffing shortages fuel airport delays during the partial government shutdown.

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This was the case for other TSA representatives, including Pascual Contreras who works as the union assistant director in Phoenix, Arizona.

“They’ve been standing around outside the whole time,” Contreras said. “So I would hate to call out another agency, but what I’m getting from some of the officers is that they (ICE) is just in the way.”

Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.