WASHINGTON, D.C. – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement today on the President’s efforts to block TSA funding and deploy ICE to airports: 

“This morning’s reports that the President blocked Senate Republican leadership’s own efforts to fund TSA are shocking and lead the country down an even more chaotic and dangerous path. Everyone should be clear that the chaos we are now seeing unfold at airports is wholly manufactured by the President. 

“ICE and CBP retain an unprecedented and unwarranted $150 billion. By blocking his own party’s proposal to fund TSA and FEMA separately from the rest of DHS, the President is grinding air travel to a halt all in order to unlock tens of billions of additional dollars for immigration enforcement and bypass even the most basic congressional limits. 

“Now the President has ordered ICE to act as roaming squads at airports, and violence has begun in at least one instance. Travel lines remain massive; TSA workers should be paid. People should be able to travel in American airports without experiencing wholly preventable turmoil or terror at the hands of the government. Voters remain outraged at the violence of ICE and know who is responsible for the chaos at airports. 

“The President should immediately reverse course, back funding for TSA, and call off the deployments of ICE officers roaming across airport lines.”