If you have been in an airport at any point over the past few weeks, you know that they are a disaster zone right now. Even more than they usually are. Over the weekend, the chaos descended to the point that some airports were reporting four or five-hour wait times at security.<\/span><\/p>\n This is all being blamed on the government shutdown. But if you look back at all previous government shutdowns in American history, you won\u2019t find anything like the breakdown that\u2019s currently taking place in Congress \u2014 which is now resulting in those five-hour TSA lines at major airports all over the country.<\/span><\/p>\n MASSIVE LINES AT JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AMID THE DHS SHUTDOWN<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/OdAXNRZgbw<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @Breaking911\/X.com<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8HOLY CRAP!!!<\/p>\n The Atlanta TSA line has now stretched to a stunning 153 minute-wait-time\u2026 AT 6AM IN THE MORNING!!!!<\/p>\n The line is WRAPPING AROUND BAGGAGE CLAIM!!!<\/p>\n THIS IS PURE INSANITY!!!!!! pic.twitter.com\/2MluEMjitJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @mattvanswol\/X.com<\/p>\n The MSY TSA line is my own personal hell \u2014 Barstool NOLA (@BarstoolNOLA) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n To give just one example of how bad it\u2019s gotten, a reporter at Reason Magazine in New Orleans <\/span>wrote:<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I arrived at the airport 3 hours & 40 minutes before my flight. I ran up to the gate\u2014no exaggeration\u2014as they were about to give my seat away (on the last flight out).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The <\/span>highest call-out rates<\/span><\/a> among TSA agents this weekend were at the following airports: <\/span><\/p>\n Because TSA officers aren\u2019t allowed to be furloughed, all of these absences were unauthorized. Most of these TSA agents are simply pretending to be sick. You can draw your own conclusion as to why the TSA officers living in the biggest urban centers in the country are more likely to abandon their posts than everyone else, but whatever the case, the result has obviously been disastrous for millions of Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s a unique situation, in many ways. This shutdown is not simply the result of a bog-standard funding dispute, or opposition to a major new direction in American policy (like Obamacare). Instead, it\u2019s about undermining the existing authority of the Executive Branch and *punishing American citizens*, all in the name of foreigners who have become the primary constituency of the Democratic Party. The way Democrats see it, Americans should suffer, and our airports should fall into total dysfunction, in service of the open-borders agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n Put another way, the TSA catastrophe is the Democratic Party in a nutshell. This is their \u201cForeigners First\u201d ideology, perfectly illustrated.<\/span><\/p>\n You may have heard that this shutdown is about \u201cpreventing abuses by ICE\u201d or something along those lines. But that\u2019s not remotely true. <\/span><\/p>\n First of all, when Democrats talk about \u201cabuses by ICE,\u201d they\u2019re referring to Left-wing agitators like Renee Good who get shot when they try to run over federal agents with their SUV, or otherwise violently interfere with law enforcement operations. Or they\u2019re talking about debunked stories, like \u201cICE used a child as bait\u201d (when in reality, the child\u2019s father abandoned him on the side of the road). So the entire narrative is a fabrication.<\/span><\/p>\n But more importantly, even if ICE agents were going around terrorizing American citizens \u2014 which they aren\u2019t \u2014 this shutdown wouldn\u2019t do anything to stop them. Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, which passed last summer, ICE (along with Customs and Border Protection) has already been funded to the tune of $75 billion \u2014 which won\u2019t run out for several years.<\/span><\/p>\n Therefore, the best Democrats can hope for is that, if they shut down TSA long enough and make it impossible for Americans to board a plane, then the White House might offer some concessions on how ICE goes about its day-to-day operations. <\/span><\/p>\n In particular, Democrats are demanding that ICE agents take off their masks (so that they\u2019re easier to doxx), stay away from schools and hospitals, and restrict immigration enforcement to foreigners who have committed multiple serious crimes (in addition to illegally entering the country, which Democrats obviously don\u2019t see as a crime at all).<\/span><\/p>\n Democrats also demand that ICE obtain a \u201cjudicial warrant\u201d from a federal judge every time they want to arrest an illegal alien inside a residence, instead of an \u201cadministrative warrant\u201d (which is approved within the Executive Branch). In other words, Democrats believe that illegal aliens are entitled to the same constitutional protections as American citizens, and they don\u2019t want to fight the issue in court because they know they\u2019re going to lose. So instead, they want the Trump administration to concede that point.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s the 20,000-foot view of the current debate. You\u2019ve probably heard some version of it, from one outlet or another. But the reality of what\u2019s going on here is very different. And if you listen to Democrats talk long enough, they\u2019ll explain what they\u2019re really after. This is not, in fact, a shutdown that\u2019s intended to \u201cstop abuses by ICE\u201d, whatever those abuses may be. The point of this shutdown is to terrorize Americans into another round of amnesty for the tens of millions of illegal aliens who currently reside in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s Peter Welch, the senator for Vermont, making that point explicit.<\/span><\/p>\n Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n In the midst of the deliberate suffering Democrats are imposing upon Americans at the airport, you have Democrat Senator Peter Welch getting to the core of what they\u2019re really after:<\/p>\n Some form of amnesty.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we were able to open up the rest of the government and focus on the\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/VDIazQPEdc<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2a0cFbQgMJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @WesternLensman\/X.com<\/p>\n If we were able to open up the rest of the government and focus on the ICE issue, it may allow us then to have, I think, a discussion that\u2019s overdue. The border is secure now. \u2026 It\u2019s ripe for us to have a sensible discussion about a reasonable immigration plan in a reasonable way, to deal with some folks who don\u2019t have legal status.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s the part that Democrats, for the most part, haven\u2019t been saying out loud. This isn\u2019t actually about ICE at all. It\u2019s about protecting the criminal foreign nationals they\u2019ve allowed into this country, so that they \u2014 and their children \u2014 can vote for Democrats. It\u2019s the same reason Democrats oppose the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship before someone can vote \u2014 which 85% of Americans support. The whole point of the shutdown is to lock in Democrat votes from illegal aliens. The Democrats\u2019 leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, has also made this objective clear. Jeffries is one of the least intelligent members of Congress \u2014 he was chosen for the leadership role solely because of his skin color \u2014 so he\u2019s not very good at keeping secrets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t stop talking about this<\/p>\n Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries literally said the quiet part out loud<\/p>\n Democrats are forcing a DHS shutdown to make sure ICE can\u2019t stop illegals from going to polling stations and voting<\/p>\n \u201cWe want an explicit prohibition that ICE can go nowhere\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/o4wlhnd53I<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @WallStreetApes\/X.com<\/p>\n Out of all of the 10,000 demands that Democrats have, strangely enough, Hakeem Jeffries is really keen on this one, very specific demand. He doesn\u2019t choose to highlight his demand that ICE agents take off their masks, or that ICE agents obtain judicial warrants, or any of that. Instead, he makes it clear that he desperately wants ICE to stay very far away from *polling stations,* in particular. He says it several times. Why might that be? Who exactly would be intimidated by the presence of a federal immigration officer at a polling station? Who would choose to stay at home, in hiding, rather than get anywhere near an ICE agent?<\/span><\/p>\n Jeffries is simply too dumb to realize how transparent he\u2019s being here. His overriding concern \u2014 and the concern of his party \u2014 is ensuring that tens of millions of illegal aliens can vote in the next election. That\u2019s what the shutdown is about. None of these people cares about Alex Pretti or Renee Good or whatever. They\u2019re not even hiding it anymore. The only rational conclusion you can draw is that illegal aliens are even more important to the Democratic Party than we realized. This is where a lot of their votes are coming from. And they\u2019re willing to take down the airports in this country, and make your life worse in every way, in order to help these criminals cast a vote in the midterms.<\/span><\/p>\n As of 5:48pm ET, this is the line at the international terminal at ATL.<\/p>\n An officer told me that\u2019s there\u2019s a whopping 3 TSA agents working this terminal.<\/p>\n Im told the estimated wait is 4 hours. \u2014 Brian Glenn (@brianglenntv) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @brianglenntv\/X.com<\/p>\n By the way, it\u2019s not just TSA that\u2019s been affected by this shutdown. While ICE and Customs and Border Protection have funding, many other agencies within DHS are impacted. Homeland Security Investigations (or HSI) is also <\/span>defunded<\/span><\/a> at the moment. They handle investigations into child sex trafficking and terrorism. The Secret Service, FEMA, and the Coast Guard are also impacted. In every sense, at a moment when we\u2019re at war with Iran, Democrats aren\u2019t simply making life less convenient. They\u2019re also making life a lot more dangerous. We\u2019ve had, what, four terror attacks in the past month? And guess what happens when you have a five-hour TSA line at every major airport? You create a large, obvious target for a mass shooter. When hundreds of people are lined up, like sitting ducks, for days on end, we\u2019re inviting a terrorist attack. That\u2019s what Democrats are doing, for the benefit of foreign invaders.<\/span><\/p>\n But if you ask Democrats, they won\u2019t even mention this. Instead, they\u2019ll claim that ICE agents \u2014 who the Trump administration is going to deploy to airports, to assist with operations during the shutdown \u2014 are actually murderous psychopaths who are going to mow down American citizens when they try to carry more than 3.4 ounces of liquid onto the plane.<\/span><\/p>\n Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n Rep. Hakeem Jeffries suggests that ICE agents deployed in airports will \u201cbrutalize\u201d and \u201ckill\u201d Americans pic.twitter.com\/6bV0mZwhM5<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @TPostMillennial\/X.com<\/p>\n He repeats the lie that ICE agents are \u201cuntrained,\u201d which isn\u2019t true. But even if it were true, so what? How much training do these people think you need in order to fill in for a TSA agent, exactly? All you have to do is tell people to put their stuff in the bin. Pat them down if the machine tells you to. And if you see a gun on the X-Ray machine, make sure you grab the gun.<\/span><\/p>\n Actually, you don\u2019t even need to do that. A few years ago, the Inspector General at DHS found that roughly 70 to 80% of weapons managed to get through TSA checkpoints. They sent undercover agents in, and only around a third of them were stopped. And that was considered an improvement, because in previous years, 90% of the guns got through the checkpoint.<\/span><\/p>\n So if you replaced every TSA agent with an \u201cuntrained\u201d, random person off the street, you\u2019d almost certainly get better results than we\u2019re getting now. But Democrats, who have created a universe in which ICE agents randomly kill people for no reason all of the time, are intent on pushing that narrative.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here, <\/span>for example<\/span><\/a>, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut:<\/span><\/p>\n ICE agents at airports will only aggravate delays & lines \u2014 disrupting checks, interrogating travelers, dragging parents from children, detaining citizens, brutalizing families, shooting & even killing.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Again, if you read between the lines here, it\u2019s not hard to see what they\u2019re actually worried about. They know that, if ICE is manning the TSA stations, they\u2019re very likely to come across illegal aliens. That\u2019s especially true if the ICE agents are checking IDs. Tom Homan, the border czar, has suggested that\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 BREAKING: Tom Homan just sent a MASSIVE warning to illegal aliens as ICE deploys to airports tomorrow<\/p>\n \u201cICE can check identification before people enter the screening area!\u201d \ud83d\udc40\ud83d\udd25<\/p>\n Foreign invaders on notice. This is what securing the homeland looks like. pic.twitter.com\/ebIWaMR2Hx<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @EricLDaugh\/X.com<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 WOW! Tom Homan just MIC DROPPED CNN\u2019s \u201cgotcha\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have a plan to have ICE at airports in 24H, how well thought out could it possibly be?!\u201d<\/p>\n HOMAN: \u201cHow much of a PLAN does it mean to guard an exit to make sure no one comes through that exit?!\u201d\ud83e\udd23\ud83d\udd25pic.twitter.com\/Gz203DqMcH<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @EricLDaugh\/X.com<\/p>\n What\u2019s going on here, in case it\u2019s not obvious, is that Democrats and the corporate press are convinced that they\u2019re being far more subtle than they actually are. You simply cannot convince any American with a functioning brain that it would be difficult to replace all of those famously \u201chighly trained\u201d TSA agents. You can\u2019t convince any sane person, with an IQ above room temperature, that we need a \u201cplan\u201d \u2014 developed over many days \u2014 before we can possibly replace the brilliance of the typical TSA employee. We\u2019ve all been to airports, OK? We know how mind-numbingly simple their job is, and how poorly they do it. We know that these people are calling in sick right now so they can play Call of Duty. So the attempt at deceiving everyone is just laughable.<\/span><\/p>\n But again, there\u2019s a point to it. At every turn, they want to protect illegals. They want to protect illegal aliens at the polling place. They want to protect illegal aliens at the airport when they have to show ID (which is probably fake or stolen). They want to protect illegals so that they can vote for Democrats in November. Period. And they do not care if they destroy your life in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n This is another area where Democrats don\u2019t have their story straight.<\/span><\/p>\n Here was Hakeem Jeffries the other day, from that same CNN interview:<\/span><\/p>\n Bash: DHS isn\u2019t funded is because you\u2019re holding out for changes to ICE, yet now you\u2019re fine funding TSA, which is your biggest leverage. ICE already has its money.<\/p>\n So what was the point of the shutdown?<\/p>\n Jeffries: We never approach government funding in terms of leverage.\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/oc7QYLQ8eO<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: WesternLensman\/X.com<\/p>\n Democrats, according to Jeffries, would never dream of using the American people as \u201cleverage\u201d to enact their open-borders agenda. It would never even cross their mind, he says. But Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the number-two Democrat in the House, said something very different in an interview with Fox back in October.<\/span><\/p>\n Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 @WhipKClark<\/a>, the number two House Democrat, on the Democrat Shutdown: \u201cOf course there will be families that are going to suffer\u2026 but it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u201d<\/p>\n These people are SICK! pic.twitter.com\/7MRHsmGMGx<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 22, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Source: @RapidResponse47\/X.com<\/p>\n She says, \u201cOf course there will be families that are going to suffer \u2026 but it is one of the few leverage times we have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to think of a more on-the-nose way to summarize the objectives of the Democratic Party. And it\u2019s coming directly from the Democratic Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. Their goal is to terrorize you and your family so that you do what they want. It\u2019s why they endorsed and funded the BLM riots in 2020. It\u2019s also why they paid for Laken Riley\u2019s killer to fly around the United States, after letting him into the country. It\u2019s also why Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman was just gunned down in Chicago, allegedly by a Venezuelan national named Jose Medina-Medina.<\/span><\/p>\n Credit: DHS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She was walking in a park by the waterfront with her friends on Thursday morning, and according to the authorities, Medina-Medina shot her in the head, completely unprovoked. The Biden administration caught him at the border in 2023, then immediately released him. Police arrested him for shoplifting from Macy\u2019s that same year, but again, he was let out of jail. He never showed up to court.<\/span><\/p>\n This is why Democrats exist as a political party, at this point. If they actually wanted to improve the lives of American citizens, they\u2019d be talking about abolishing TSA entirely right now. They\u2019d point out that there are around 20 airports in this country with private security arrangements, including San Francisco International, and all of them are operating smoothly right now. They\u2019d tell you that TSA operates like a gigantic scam, using taxpayer money to purchase extremely expensive body scanners that are sold by companies with high-level political connections. But Democrats don\u2019t want to tell you any of that, because right now, the TSA is one of the most effective weapons in their arsenal. They\u2019re using the TSA to disable American infrastructure in service of their open-borders agenda.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s the same reason they don\u2019t want to privatize Air Traffic Control. Late last night, there was a catastrophic collision on the runway of LaGuardia Airport involving a fire truck and a passenger plane.<\/span><\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 BREAKING UPDATE: MULTIPLE CRITICAL PATIENTS AFTER AIR CANADA FLIGHT COLLIDES WITH VEHICLE WHILE LANDING AT LAGUARDIA AIRPORT. POSSIBLE FATALITIES. https:\/\/t.co\/hZWimAuwe5<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/62SUgxoUkA<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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