Trump rejects deal to end shutdown as ICE heads to troubled airports

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Mar 23, 2026

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President Donald Trump Monday rejected a bipartisan deal that could end the partial government shutdown and ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to patrol some airport security checkpoints as air travel delays kept getting worse.

As ICE agents headed to 14 airports in the New York area and nationwide, Trump refused a proposed deal with Democrats that would end the airport chaos by having the Senate pass a spending package for the entire Department of Homeland Security except for ICE.

He wants GOP to keep pushing Democrats to cave and accept his unrelated bill imposing new voting restrictions.

“I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats,” Trump wrote on his social media site.

ICE agents, which have sparked controversy with their aggressive tactics, were deployed early Monday at Newark Liberty Airport and were also expected at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, which was temporarily closed after a deadly Air Canada runway collision late Sunday.

The immigration agents were expected to help understaffed Transportation Security Administration screeners operate airport security checkpoints as lines stretched for hours at busy airports, especially during busy morning periods.

The president Monday said ICE agents should not wear masks covering their faces while patrolling airports.

Hundreds of thousands of Homeland Security workers, including TSA, U.S. Secret Service and Coast Guard, have worked without pay for a month since Congress failed to renew DHS funding. Many airport screeners are calling out sick in protest or to work other jobs.

An ICE document identified all three major New York-area airports along with Philadelphia, Atlanta and a handful of other major hubs as initial locations for the new operation, several media reports said.

Senate Republicans want to accept a Democratic offer to pass a bill funding DHS without ICE. Democrats have refused to fund ICE without wide-ranging reforms to Trump’s unpopular immigration crackdown.

The GOP would then seek to fund ICE using the reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority, instead of the 60-vote supermajority required for most legislation to pass the Senate.

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. John Kennedy, both conservative Republicans, backed the potential deal over the weekend.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune presented the deal to Trump late Sunday, but Trump rejected it, Punchbowl News reported.

The president wants to force senators from both parties to agree to his package of strict voting restrictions, which leaders on both sides of the aisle say has no chance of passing unless Republicans scrap the filibuster rule.

All Democrats and a handful of Republicans oppose the SAVE Act, which would ban mail-in voting and force voters to provide proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, to cast a vote.