NEW YORK/ATLANTA--Two pilots died in a runway accident that shut New York's LaGuardia Airport and President Donald Trump deployed armed immigration agents to major airports on Monday as passengers endured hours-long lines in a system strained by personnel shortages.
The crash between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia injured dozens of passengers and led to hundreds of flight cancellations at the start of the working week in the latest disruption for airports and carriers that have been knocked off-kilter by a weeks-long budget standoff in Congress.The crashed jet remained visible at the airport on Monday, its crushed cockpit pointing skyward.
The two young pilots who died in the incident had just started their careers, said Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration. "It's an absolute tragedy," he said at a news conference.
Travelers have endured hours-long waits at security screening checkpoints in recent days as absentee rates have spiked among Transportation Security Administration employees who have gone without pay for more than a month.
"If you work, you should get your money. Why should that be a problem?" said traveler Edwin Blain, 60, who showed up four hours early to avoid missing his flight at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the nation's busiest, where 42% of TSA agents were absent on Sunday.
On Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing bulletproof vests and pistols stood guard in airports in Atlanta, New York and New Jersey, according to Reuters witnesses. They were not wearing the masks that have become a divisive symbol of Trump's immigration crackdown and a subject of negotiations in Congress.
White House immigration czar Tom Homan said agents had been deployed to 14 airports, in cities including New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Houston. Authorities said the agents would provide crowd control, but Trump said they could also make arrests - raising concerns that the chaotic raids that have played out on the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere might come to the nation's airports as well.
"They're able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That's very fertile territory," Trump told reporters. "But that's not why they're there. They're really there to help."
In Washington, there was little sign the standoff between Trump's Republicans and opposition Democrats would end soon. Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new curbs on immigration agents, who have killed U.S. citizens and sparked public outrage during their crackdown.
