Republican Representative Lauren Boebert has been involved in an online dispute with a journalist after posting a video about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at US airports. The Trump administration deployed ICE agents to over a dozen airports this week amid a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, causing TSA staffing shortages and long security queues.
In the video, Boebert claimed that ICE agents had reduced wait times at Minneapolis airport to under five minutes. She captioned the clip: 'You can’t make this stuff up!! ICE agents show up at airports, and suddenly TSA wait times in Minneapolis drop to less than five minutes! Called it!!'
Billy Binion, a reporter for Reason magazine, challenged her post on X, stating that ICE agents were not at Minneapolis airport and that wait times there had always been short. 'You can’t make this stuff up!!' is a funny way to start this because Lauren Boebert did, in fact, make this stuff up,' he wrote.
Boebert responded: 'I never said they were? Keep trying, tho.' Binion replied by quoting her original post, pointing out the inconsistency. Boebert then wrote: 'It’s not your fault. Our schools failed you.'
Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar also criticised Boebert, writing: 'You just made this stuff up. ICE agents have not been deployed into Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Our airport security wait times are normally quick.' CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski similarly called out Boebert, who asked him to specify what she had made up.
