After the Trump administration deployed hundreds of ICE agents to 14 of the U.S.’s busiest airports amid long lines caused by the partial government shutdown, impacting TSA workers, the presence of many Black and Brown ICE agents is igniting conversation.
Reactions to videos and photos of Black ICE agents working at airports to assist TSA workers, who are working without pay and with less staff due to quitting or call-outs, have been a mix of shock, disgust, and even pity. A viral image of a Black female ICE agent especially garnered attention and debate, as online users wondered if she, like her fellow Black ICE officers, was a staunch MAGA supporter or simply a person in need of a job being used as a political pawn.
Polling shows an overwhelming majority of Black Americans, who voted 83% to 13% against Trump in the 2024 election, disapprove of his immigration enforcement policies, which have resulted in violence and the death of two U.S. citizens.
“I truly feel bad for the black girl ICE agent. I don’t know her reasons but I also don’t care, unfortunately. There absolutely has to be a calling in, reckoning, and in some cases public shaming/scrutiny for crossing the picket line into oppressive structures,” said political influencer Lynae Vanee.
“And if we keep citing socioeconomic stressors as ‘reasons,’ we keep letting capitalism win. However, I, for one, would like to see alternatives presented to this girl along with the outrage. We gotta learn how to be a village again.”
“We are assuming she ain’t the same people who voted for this s—t. When you see ICE slamming people to the ground, breaking up homes… taking a job that represent (sic) violence and racism this is absolutely a bad choice as Black woman,” said one user on Threads. “Never forget they were told to stop people based on RACE. When your new job is being a member of the 2026 slave catching team — maybe rethink the job.”
Democratic strategist and political commentator Reecie Colbert explains that while there have always been Black ICE agents and that there are “not entirely bad reasons” to work for ICE, the political climate under Trump has changed.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the agency and has turned them into a lawless militia that executes his authoritarian agenda,” she told theGrio.
Critics of the Trump administration believe many Black and Brown agents were deliberately selected to help secure airports as a political ploy amid long-held condemnation that President Trump’s immigration policies are racially motivated.
“I do think that there is a deliberate effort to try to make Black agents, and Black women in particular, the face of this authoritarian takeover of these airports,” said Colbert. “But that might actually backfire if they’re trying to use Black women as a shield. What they don’t know is that putting Black women to the forefront is going to make people have an even stronger negative reaction to it.”
Democratic strategist and CEO of the political firm Blueprint Strategy LLC, Antjuan Seawright, told theGrio of Black ICE agents at U.S. airports, “They’re being forced to be there.”
“I think they may have signed up for one duty, but now they’re being forced to exercise another duty in the same vein, in the same way, that those who signed up to serve our country by way of the military and the National Guard are being forced to do duties and exercise duties that they did not sign up for.”
Seawright similarly argued that the Trump administration is purposefully using Black faces to execute its MAGA agenda.
“I think they want to make folks comfortable while being uncomfortable, and it’s easy to put a Black face out there to mask an agenda that will essentially harm those same communities that the faces represent,” he told theGrio.
