A protest at the international airport that serves the greater Atlanta metropolitan area is scheduled to occur today, Monday, March 23, 2026 at 5:00 in the afternoon Eastern Daylight Time against the deployment of officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the United States at the airport — as if things were not already bad enough.
Protest at Atlanta Airport — As If Things Were Not Bad Enough: March 2026 Travel Alert
Many agents of the Transportation Security Administration have either called in “sick” or have quit their jobs altogether because they have not been paid due to the partial shutdown of the federal government of the United States. Lawmakers of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have been pointing fingers at each other and blaming each other for not funding the Transportation Security Administration, which has resulted in a stalemate and nothing being accomplished.
Due to TSA staffing constraints, ATL is continuing to see longer than normal wait times at security checkpoints.
Travelers are encouraged to arrive at least 4 hours early.
We appreciate your patience and thank our federal and airport partners for their continued dedication.
The current president of the United States announced that officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the United States — who are more commonly known as ICE — were being deployed at major airports around the country effective as of today, Monday, March 23, 2026. “As Radical Left Democrats force the Department of Homeland Security shutdown into its 35th day, everyday Americans are bearing the cost. More than 100,000 DHS employees — including 50,000 TSA officers — are working without paychecks for the third time in six months, leading to skyrocketing resignations and massive callouts that have crippled airports across the country”, according to Donald J. Trump on Friday, March 20, 2026. “Enough is enough. Radical Left Democrats — who bragged about “making people hurt” — must immediately cease their partisan games, stop weaponizing national security for political gain, and join Republicans in passing full funding for DHS.”
Naureen Shah — who is the director of government affairs, equality division of the National Political Advocacy Division of the American Civil Liberties Union — disagrees: “President Trump and his allies in Congress refused to fund TSA and manufactured a crisis at airports across the country. Now, the president apparently wants to use ICE as his private security force, reminding all of us that ICE is not retreating from lawlessness but assigned at will by the president for political retribution”, she wrote in this official statement. “This is the exact opposite of what the American people are clamoring for, which are real, enforceable changes to rein in ICE and Border Patrol’s cruel deportation and detention obsession.”
This has led to the call for an emergency protest later today at Domestic Terminal South at the international airport in Atlanta by a group called ICE OUT!, which should only help to worsen an already ridiculous situation.
Final Boarding Call
I am not sure that the deployment of ICE will do much to alleviate the situation of security checkpoints at airports around the United States — but I certainly do not believe that a protest will help matters. In fact, I believe a protest will only worsen the situation.
If more expensive airfares and waiting in line for greater than six hours — only to miss your flight anyway — is not enough excitement for you, come to the international airport in Atlanta later today to experience the wonderfully joyful inconvenience of a useless organized protest to add to your frustration and waste your time while elected representatives continue to fuel the insanity by prioritizing their childish behaviors over the wants and needs of the constituents they are supposed to be serving…
Photograph ©2016 by Brian Cohen.
