Sonia Stolar | Staff Writer
As an international student, airport visits are second nature to me. I have mastered the art of packing for a trip that could last up to four months, memorized my way around Miami International Airport, and have accumulated passport pages filled with stamps from layovers and final destinations.
While I do find serenity in a solitary journey through security checkpoints and passport control, there is always a maintained level of anxiety. After all, traveling can become a stressful activity if not approached with the right mindset.
For me, it is mostly the lack of control: over the plane, over who gets to unzip my backpack, over what is on the food on the flight, over the weather, over the strength of the wind, over the probability of rain, and, of course, over the turbulence.
All that is left for those like me is building up a level of trust toward the professionals who guide you through that airport journey. But what happens when they don’t get paid by the federal government, which, instead of properly paying the Transportation Security Administration workers, chooses to spend money on useless warfare and believes that deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is a way to solve all problems.
As much as no one likes standing in a line that stretches into five long lanes and ends with unpacking your belongings, only to pack them back up, security procedures are crucial. However, during the recent partial government shutdown, Congress chose to allocate billions of dollars to agencies like ICE, instead of paying those who are responsible for travelers’ safety.
ICE was deployed to airports throughout the country under the pretense of crowd control and making the role of remaining TSA employees easier by taking over certain security measures. Though, is that really the best solution one could come up with?
As we are about to pack up our bags and be on our merry way to visit family and friends who remain abroad, it seems as if it is obligatory to run into ICE agents everywhere. After all, it is only an illusion of safety, a broken Band-Aid that barely sticks on top of the cut that is made by the federal government’s rejection of granting the needed funds to essential workers, and not an agency that the public has repeatedly asked to defund.
Now, as an international student who goes to a university that is in an active partnership with ICE, I’ve never seen the need for their presence on campus, and I for sure don’t see the need for their presence in airports.
While it is dying down and ICE agents who were deployed in one airport in Florida—Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers—and other major ones nationwide are leaving this post, it is still of great concern that this was the government’s idea of problem-solving.
The agents have nothing to do with the responsibilities of the TSA. ICE is not trained to perform airport security related responsibilities.
I am preparing for stressful days of traveling, while hearing stories from friends about delayed and cancelled flights, standing in lines that stretch all the way to the street, and constantly seeing news of disorder and chaos.
As TSA agents are quitting, instead of working for free, the future of air travel in the U.S. is uncertain. Now the government’s incapability to distribute funds logically will grow into yet another challenge international students will have to grow accustomed to dealing with.
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