Latest / The imuRgency Room / Airport Lines, Gas Prices, ICE… It's All Connected

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Airport Lines, Gas Prices, ICE… It's All Connected · The imuRgency Room

• 0:00
  Travel in America right now is more difficult than actually
• 0:03
  ever, and unfortunately it's not looking like it's going to get
• 0:06
  any better. If you have tried to hop on a
• 0:08
  plane anytime in the past couple of months, you may have run into
• 0:11
  maybe just a little bit of delays.
• 0:13
  It didn't matter who you stopped to talk to, this is all you got.
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  Go, go, go, go, go. We were like cattle.
• 0:20
  And we flew back to Atlanta and now all three airports are
• 0:23
  closed and the earliest flight is Tuesday.
• 0:27
  So we basically have a lady they got any more flights when I'm
• 0:29
  saying and she's like, no, not for Spirit.
• 0:30
  They're not flying anybody out today.
• 0:32
  They come to all their flights. I guess.
• 0:33
  Is it a shortage? And so if y'all flying Siri,
• 0:36
  y'all better find out about another airline because y'all
• 0:38
  not getting out today. And if you yourself have not
• 0:41
  been blessed with the amazing experience of waiting 5 plus
• 0:44
  hours in line at the airport only to miss your flight, you
• 0:46
  may have heard about the crazy lines happening at the airport
• 0:49
  right now. You have TSA security lines that
• 0:51
  are taking reportedly 5 plus hours to clear.
• 0:53
  You have people missing flights, air traffic controllers being
• 0:55
  understaffed, planes crashing, more unpredictable turbulence
• 0:58
  and also having ice seemingly try and step in and have a very
• 1:03
  prominent presence in our airports.
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  And now with all that, you suddenly have large swaths of
• 1:08
  the American people now finding themselves caring and talking
• 1:11
  about politics because unfortunately for a lot of
• 1:13
  people that do not do politics, the politics are now inescapable
• 1:17
  and are evidently doing that. Hey guys, what's up?
• 1:20
  Is emergency now more? Welcome back to my channel.
• 1:22
  And if you're wondering how we got here, here's what's going
• 1:24
  on. To be brief, if you haven't
• 1:25
  caught up, there has been a partial government shutdown
• 1:27
  since around mid February because Congress can't agree on
• 1:30
  how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:32
  And remember, the Department of Homeland Security or DHS,
• 1:34
  consists of TSA, ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, FEMA and
• 1:38
  more. So the funding for that has been
• 1:40
  suspended. But if you do remember, ICE
• 1:42
  specifically got a big whopping $75 billion in funding under the
• 1:46
  big beautiful bill that passed around mid last year.
• 1:49
  But for TSA agents, this is the second time under this
• 1:52
  administration and have gone without a guaranteed paycheck
• 1:54
  for over a months time. So of course this time you have
• 1:57
  over 400 and counting TSA agents quitting.
• 2:00
  And I mean, can you blame them? Like imagine you're expected to
• 2:02
  show up to work every single day during the busiest season of
• 2:05
  your job and expected to work extended hours for free.
• 2:08
  I'm like, yeah, no, people need to get paid.
• 2:10
  We already have so many Americans living paycheck to
• 2:12
  paycheck and you can't possibly expect them to keep working in
• 2:15
  these conditions if they're missing multiple a month's worth
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  even. But I do also understand and
• 2:19
  commend the people that are still working and keeping
• 2:21
  whatever form of TSA is up right now, up and running out of the
• 2:25
  sure hope that the shutdown will end someday because the job
• 2:27
  market right now is just so terribly cooked.
• 2:29
  Like we want to talk about how bad the job market is in
• 2:31
  general. It is especially TSA agents
• 2:33
  right now. And you may be asking Rummy, why
• 2:35
  is the government shutdown? Like if it's been a month, what
• 2:37
  can they not agree on? Essentially, the political T is
• 2:39
  that Democrats basically want to reiterate what is already law,
• 2:42
  but have the Republicans actually recognize it.
• 2:44
  And that which is already law, being that ICE agents, when
• 2:47
  working, can't wear masks, can't use excessive force and have to
• 2:50
  have judicial warrants to detain people, essentially reinstating
• 2:53
  the bounds in which ICE can operate in the US.
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  Because if you've been keeping up with anything that's been
• 2:57
  going on in the country over the past year, they have essentially
• 3:00
  overstepped so much. And ICE is currently operating
• 3:03
  under very LAX regulations and restrictions, which should not
• 3:07
  be if you're going to be actually taking lives and taking
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  people from their homes, putting them in detention centers and
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  all that. And again, I want to reiterate
• 3:13
  that this is nothing radical. And these are things that are
• 3:15
  already in the law, but the department has not been abiding
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  by it. And for this reason, Republicans
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  are essentially saying no because like, it's so mean to
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  have to have ICE agents show their face when they're not
• 3:24
  working and actually have repercussions for their actions
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  because that hurts their feelings.
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  Bias check here. There's a lot of shade in
• 3:29
  reduction with that statement. That's essentially the vibe.
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  There is, however, a little glimmer of hope that a tentative
• 3:34
  agreement can be reached at least to return to paying TSA
• 3:37
  agents. But, you know, of course, like
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  politics, those things are moving very slow and there is
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  not a lot of confidence in this. Now, like I've been saying,
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  there are crazy lines at TSA right now stretching hours and
• 3:46
  hours. And people are showing up to
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  airports multiple hours before their flights, even like a full
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  day before their flight and still missing their flight
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  because of things like security. And it's getting to the point
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  where for some airports, they are hinting at potentially just
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  shutting down entirely because they're understaffed.
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  And as a response to this, this lovely administration has sent
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  in ICE agents to occupy the space and to bolster and help
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  security be more efficient. And I just have to say that this
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  sounds like a giant security risk.
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  And for an administration that loves to come after things for
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  national security threats, this definitely sounds like 1.
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  Because when has ICE ever really indicated safety?
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  They kidnapped people off the streets and still appear in the
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  general public and have detained, shot and citizens for
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  practicing the right to observe or protest.
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  And that's not even getting into how many people have actually
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  passed away in ICE detention in custody.
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  Like, how do we see those same people instilling a feeling of
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  safety in airports, you know, where there is a just higher
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  concentration, people who are not American, for one, and two,
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  are just traveling domestically and internationally.
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  Like, I don't know, that doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
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  And aside from the human rights violations that they commit, ICE
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  just simply is not trained in Transportation Security, like,
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  at all. In fact, famously, ICE is the
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  least trained in the Department of Homeland Security, whether
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  it's training only being shortened and shortened for
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  faster turnarounds to get people in the streets.
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  In an investigation by The Washington Post, they found
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  documents that verify that ICE last year moved about 240 hours
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  from its basic training program, or more than 40 percent of
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  instructional time. The initial cuts eliminated more
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  than 100 hours dedicated to hands on instruction and
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  practice scenarios, including 1/2 of the 56 hours once spent
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  on firearms training, the record show.
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  Fitness training time was almost entirely cut.
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  Also eliminated were dozens of hours of classroom learning on
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  such topics as case processing and deportation officers legal
• 5:32
  authority. Going further to say that with
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  further cuts later that fall, records show ICE had eliminated
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  3/4 of the hours once dedicated to evaluating recruits practical
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  skills, including firearms handling, The agents see
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  eliminated time for driving tests and cut all 26 hours
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  allotted for evaluating recruits grasp on skills specific to
• 5:50
  immigration enforcement and deportation operations.
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  So yeah, a lot of important stuff.
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  And right now it's kind of given that we're just putting a bunch
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  of random people on the streets and in the airports with and
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  near 0 knowledge about their authority and to case
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  processing, which of course, since then they've turned out
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  more than three times the amount of ICE officers than before the
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  program was cut and edited. And having these people work for
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  ICE is one thing, but to then put these people in the place
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  base of TSA agents is a little spooky when you consider that
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  they have no training to screen for anything.
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  Because on the TSA side, TSA agent training takes a bit
• 6:22
  longer and looks a little different.
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  What I want people to truly understand is that it takes a
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  long time to become a TSA officer, Caleb Harmon Marshall,
• 6:28
  founder of the Gate Access newsletter and who worked as a
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  TSA for eight years, told the USA TODAY.
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  He estimated it took him five to six months to become certified,
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  which included training at a facility near Miami
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  International Airport and on the go job training with an
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  experienced TSO. So you work with them for a few
• 6:43
  weeks and then you take several extensive tests to make sure
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  you're certified on every single function.
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  He said. From the X-ray machine to pat
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  downs. Marshall, who spent most of his
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  time at Atlanta's International Airport, noted that aviation
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  security is completely different from what ICE does.
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  So again, not only does CSA training take longer than ICE
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  training, it's completely different.
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  So it kind of feels like we're hiring a plumber to fix the
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  electricity, you know? And sorry to plumbers for the
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  ICE comparison. That's no shade to y'all.
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  I love y'all. I just want to make a point
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  here. According to multiple reports,
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  ICE is more so patrolling the airports and not really helping
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  with security lines. According to.
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  To a senior ICE official, agents could be helping out with tasks
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  like checking IDs and doing crowd control, but they are not
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  trained for stuff like running X-ray machines.
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  So the idea here being potentially you have ICE agents
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  taking care of simpler tasks so that TSA officers who are short
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  staffed right now can focus on the more specialized work like
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  running X-ray machines. But we have not seen ICE agents
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  doing much of anything other than walking around the
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  terminal. So we're not seeing them doing
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  anything at the screening checkpoints themselves, best we
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  can tell. And of course, we're not on the
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  other side of security, we're not within the security
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  checkpoint. So we can't see everything that
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  ICE might be doing at this airport, but public facing in
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  the general area of the terminal before we get through security,
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  by and large we are just seeing ICE walking around the terminal.
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  Which then is also interesting because like, wasn't that the
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  whole point of having them there in the 1st place?
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  Like not that anyones really looking for an ICE agent to be
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  all up in your luggage looking at you and East, but they at
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  this point aren't really even helping.
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  Like they're just straight up adding to the congestion that's
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  already here at this point. Like the fact that they're being
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  paid for one crazy to just idle around the airport while actual
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  TSA workers that are showing up and actually working aren't
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  being paid a dime does not make any sense to me.
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  And the latest, of course, is that if ICE isn't helping
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  enough, the president is threatening to deploy the
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  National Guard. Like what are we talking about?
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  Like how are any of these things helpful?
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  Just pay them people. Like why are we literally
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  militarizing airports when that's just not the issue?
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  We need to pay people, and we've already seen ICE occupation at
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  airports result in aggressive encounters and detentions of
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  people with excessive force. And unfortunately, we knew this
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  was going to happen. But it's always especially
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  heartbreaking to see. And while their presence is not
• 8:51
  really helping out with the flow of TSA traffic or with the flow
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  of the airport at all, what it is doing, however, is inciting
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  fear in people, which is going to make people think twice about
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  traveling. Additionally, you have ICE at
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  the exits and entrances surrounding the airport area,
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  which can also impact people's livelihoods, such as taxi
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  drivers and Uber drivers who may not be documented and can no
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  longer feel safe taking those rides.
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  And you already know that these rides are apps are probably
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  going to hike up the prices to the airport for travelers now
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  that there's going to be more of that scarcity.
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  And this, of course, all comes at the same time as the price of
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  fuel continues to keep rising because we kind of started us
• 9:28
  more with Iran. And then in response, Iran
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  blocked off the Strait of Hormuz where like, you know, only about
• 9:33
  20% of oil globally has to pass through.
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  And this has caused a chain of reaction that is essentially
• 9:39
  just supply and demand in action, making fuel prices
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  skyrocket for everyone, which like, hey, maybe we shouldn't
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  civilians of other countries. And I'm sure now for those of
• 9:47
  you with cars, you're starting to see how much a tank of gas
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  has gone up. And that is a real world impact.
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  So like I said, say whether you want to get involved with
• 9:54
  politics or not, they are going to get involved with you my
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  friends. And it's not just for your cars.
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  Getting back to the planes of it all, oil prices have soared more
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  than 40% since the start of the US Iran war back on February
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  28th, which triggered price spikes for gas and jet fuel.
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  And jet fuel prices are up about 106% versus a month ago.
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  And all of that is according to the International Air Transport
• 10:14
  Association, which measured data for the week ended March 20th.
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  And already some airlines said that they will increase fares or
• 10:20
  tack on fuel surcharges to tickets.
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  So not only do we have airport security holdups in treachery,
• 10:25
  you are paying much more for a worse airport experience if you
• 10:29
  have to travel right now. And obviously this is just how
• 10:31
  the world is related to current airport happenings because
• 10:34
  everything is connected. But there are definitely better
• 10:36
  and more fully in depth videos of what's happening in Iran.
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  And if you would like to know more, I definitely recommend you
• 10:41
  check out new sources or other creators that talk more about
• 10:43
  that in detail because the attacks and violence in Iran are
• 10:46
  just unnecessary by all means. And you know, I'm aware that
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  this video is about how this is all affecting us by our price
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  increases in worse travel experience.
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  But like us as Americans right now, this is the most cushioned
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  effect of this whole world. And we're really coming at this
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  from a very privileged point of view because sure, it's harder
• 11:01
  to travel and things are more expensive, but for the other
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  side and for so many countries, civilians are literally being
• 11:06
  bombed and losing their lives every single day.
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  And that is the fault of this country getting involved.
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  No one really asked for it. And my heart goes out to anyone
• 11:14
  who is there and or has friends and family in Iran.
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  And now that's all mostly the facts and the stuff that we
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  know. I feel like it wouldn't be right
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  of me to talk about this without kind of putting it all in
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  context. And I put conspiratorial in
• 11:25
  quotes because there is some basis in this.
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  And what I'm about to say was pretty much spelled out.
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  And the documents that were very public but no one paid attention
• 11:33
  to of this whole airport fiasco and how it is essentially just a
• 11:37
  part of Project 2025. Like everything that's happening
• 11:40
  right now is just part of the plan.
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  Like everyone's talking about how this is so unprecedented,
• 11:48
  how it's so strange that like, it's been so long and no one
• 11:50
  seems to be really pushing to reopen TSA and to start paying
• 11:53
  for TSA. Well, that's because this exact
• 11:56
  situation was always a part of Project 2025, with the goal
• 11:59
  being to dismantle the TSA union and essentially privatize it.
• 12:02
  So. Why does Project 2025 call for
• 12:05
  privatizing TSA? It doesn't just call for
• 12:08
  privatizing TSA. It calls for the elimination of
• 12:10
  DHS entirely, getting rid of DHS, dismantling it and
• 12:14
  combining all of the immigration and enforcement agencies into
• 12:18
  one big agency, privatizing TSA, and spinning off FEMA and the
• 12:22
  Coast Guard into different agencies.
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  Imagine you're at the airport heading to to see your family,
• 12:27
  and instead of ATSA officer checking your bag, you're
• 12:29
  staring at an armed ICE agent in tactical gear.
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  It's March 2020, sixth, and your vacation just became a border
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  checkpoint. This isn't just emergency
• 12:37
  staffing, it's the live action rollout of page 159 of Project
• 12:42
  2025. Now, while many people take
• 12:44
  issue with TSA because, I mean, TSI has never really been a fan
• 12:48
  favor for anybody, that still doesn't mean that we are in
• 12:50
  alignment with the Heritage Foundation or Project 2025.
• 12:53
  Because the reason I want to privatize airport security is
• 12:55
  for control reasons. Like, of course, it's for
• 12:57
  nefarious reasons and not for the benefit of the general
• 12:59
  American people. And as of now, all of the things
• 13:01
  that are going on travel are scaring many people away from
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  choosing to travel right now, as well as just making it
• 13:05
  overwhelmingly difficult and dangerous to do so if you
• 13:08
  actually choose to to travel. And while I don't know exactly
• 13:10
  how this is going to play out, I definitely wouldn't be surprised
• 13:12
  if going private ends up benefiting one of Trump's
• 13:15
  billionaire friends because that's pretty much how
• 13:16
  everything has gone, at least in this administration.
• 13:19
  And let me be clear, with all that in control, the police
• 13:21
  stayed at the airport would not make anything safer.
• 13:24
  Because while TSA has not been the best, privatizing public
• 13:27
  services should at the very least raise a few alarm bells,
• 13:30
  especially when this was all outlined in Project 2025.
• 13:33
  As TSA is a national security operation, having every single
• 13:37
  independent airport have its own independent privatized
• 13:39
  contractor kind of defeats the purpose of the national
• 13:42
  cohesion. This would mean that different
• 13:43
  States and different airports have different rules, things
• 13:45
  that you can and can't bring in different forms of documents
• 13:48
  that you'll need to travel in between states or out the
• 13:50
  country, and more control over who gets in and gets out of the
• 13:54
  country. And this would also dismantle
• 13:55
  the union of the TSA, essentially taking it from a
• 13:57
  federal function to privatize contractors, which dismantles
• 14:00
  the protections of these workers and a private company.
• 14:03
  Workers will have varying benefits and probably won't have
• 14:05
  the ability to unionize and ensure just working conditions
• 14:08
  and looking big picture. Again not to be conspiratorial
• 14:10
  because I am not, but it's interesting to know which people
• 14:13
  are really benefiting from. The scenario like this all kind
• 14:15
  of feels like a test pilot to militarize air travel and
• 14:18
  regulate who's coming in or going out because that has
• 14:21
  become more of a national interest especially as the
• 14:23
  country is making more isolatory moves and not making many other
• 14:27
  friends with other countries. Keeping non Americans out and
• 14:29
  more importantly keeping Americans in the country seems
• 14:32
  like it's going to be a priority.
• 14:34
  And again, this is just me speculating, but this could all
• 14:36
  be in response to the fact that 2020 5 was the largest year of
• 14:40
  Americans leaving or at the American exodus as a direct
• 14:43
  response to this administration in the way that the country is
• 14:45
  going. And when I say the largest year,
• 14:46
  I am not exaggerating. Like last year, we saw an exodus
• 14:49
  literally in the largest numbers that we've seen since the Great
• 14:52
  Depression, which should be very telling.
• 14:54
  Last year, the US experienced something that hasn't
• 14:56
  definitively occurred since the Great Depression.
• 14:58
  More people moved out than moved in.
• 15:00
  The US experienced net negative migration, an estimated loss of
• 15:03
  some 150,000 people in 2025, and the outflow will likely increase
• 15:08
  in 2026, calculations by the Bookings Institution, a public
• 15:11
  policy think tank. More Americans are leaving the
• 15:13
  US one year and then the next year there being so many travel
• 15:15
  difficulties and restrictions, It sounds a little suspicious to
• 15:18
  me. Like yes, we have the whole TSA
• 15:21
  situation and the prices going up, but also with the
• 15:23
  underfunding of the FAA, we've been seeing numerous aviation
• 15:25
  accidents such as the Potomac River midair crash that happened
• 15:28
  last year. And like I was alluding to at
• 15:29
  the beginning of the video, it's even affecting us today with the
• 15:32
  recent LaGuardia plane crash that resulted in LaGuardia
• 15:34
  getting shut down for the day and 2 pilots losing their lives.
• 15:36
  Like, it's really getting spooky, you guys.
• 15:38
  And again, I want to reiterate that I am not saying that all of
• 15:40
  this is overtly intentional, but I do think that they were
• 15:43
  definitely ignorant thinking that there would be less of an
• 15:45
  immediate outcome so that people wouldn't be putting pressure on
• 15:48
  Congress to accept whatever deal the GOP wants.
• 15:50
  And I think now it's more important than ever now that
• 15:52
  we're seeing how politics are directly impacting all of us.
• 15:56
  Regardless if you consider yourself a political person or
• 15:58
  not, or someone that's super tapped into the political scene
• 16:00
  or not, this stuff does impact us all.
• 16:02
  And when we choose to ignore it, we get stuff like this and or
• 16:05
  worse, I consider myself someone that is relatively politically
• 16:08
  aware, like I judged really know what's going on, but I'm never
• 16:10
  claiming to know like everything that's going on.
• 16:12
  But even that is important. And honestly, your duty as
• 16:15
  someone living in this country to be aware of what is happening
• 16:18
  and the people in things at play.
• 16:19
  Because while the powers that be want you to believe that this is
• 16:22
  all like above you and nothing that you should concern yourself
• 16:24
  with as an individual person, all of this stuff does and will
• 16:27
  affect you. And I think they've gotten just
• 16:29
  way too comfortable with just letting things slide.