By Riane Lumer, Alison Main, Aileen Graef

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said border czar Tom Homan will oversee the deployment of immigration agents to airports Monday, as Senate Republicans said the party is “hitting pause” on talks to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump first threatened Saturday to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports to help alleviate the strain on Transportation Security Administration workers if lawmakers didn’t reach an agreement to fund DHS.

Homan told CNN on Sunday that the move is about “helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols.”

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Republicans are still waiting for Democrats to respond to an offer from the White House as they race to find a deal to reopen DHS before a planned holiday break.

“We’re hitting pause for a minute, and everyone’s collecting themselves and figuring out where they want to be,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Sunday afternoon.

The uncertainty comes as airports around the country have seen long security lines, as TSA officers have quit or called out sick as they work without pay amid a partial government shutdown. Homan said his “opinion is that we concentrate on the airports where the longest waits are; we prioritize those large airports with those long waits like three hours.”

“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine. Not trained in that? We won’t do that,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant roles, such as guarding an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker.”

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, however, appeared to suggest a broader role for ICE, raising questions about the government’s coordination in implementing the plan.

“They run those same type of security machines at the southern border, right? Packages come through or people come through,” Duffy told ABC News’ “This Week.”

“We have ICE agents who are trained and can provide assistance to agents,” Duffy said.

It isn’t ICE’s role to perform screenings at ports of entry, but rather that of US Customs and Border Protection. CNN reached out to the Department of Transportation for clarification on Duffy’s comments, but it referred a reporter to DHS.

Meanwhile, the union representing TSA officers is pushing back, warning the move could put passenger safety at risk. American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement Sunday that “Replacing unpaid TSA workers with ICE agents is not a solution, but a dangerous escalation.”

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said, stressing that TSA officers spend months developing highly specialized skills to detect explosives, weapons and sophisticated threats designed to evade screening. “You cannot improvise that.”

Homan said ICE will continue conducting immigration enforcement operations while aiding TSA. He added the heads of ICE and the TSA are involved in planning discussions, and that the public can expect more details of “a well-thought-out plan to execute” later Sunday.

Democrats have refused to fund the department as they demand changes that would rein in Trump’s immigration policies after two people were killed during an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Vice President JD Vance accused Democrats on Sunday of holding TSA “hostage” while expressing gratitude that the White House will deploy ICE agents to airports.

“Thankfully, ICE will bring sanity to our airports starting tomorrow, but it’s far past time for Democrats to fund DHS,” he posted on X.

But Sen. Chris Murphy, a key progressive voice in the Democratic caucus, accused Republicans of holding TSA “hostage” amid the shutdown.

“Why don’t they just reopen TSA? Why don’t we just reopen the Coast Guard and FEMA?” he asked, pointing out that Democrats have said they would vote for legislation to fund other critical agencies within DHS.

“They want to hold TSA hostage so that they can continue getting Democrats to fund the illegality happening at ICE. Let’s just isolate our difference. Let’s not hold TSA hostage any longer,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Bipartisan appropriators held a brief meeting with Homan on Friday evening that sources from both parties called “productive.” Thune told reporters Sunday he hoped to meet with Homan after another bipartisan meeting was postponed a day earlier.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing to reach a deal by the end of the week, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Two of the big sticking points remain whether to require judicial warrants on immigration enforcement action and to require ICE agents to remove their masks — both key Democratic demands that the White House has resisted.

Senators are eager to wrap up talks and pass a bill before Easter recess at week’s end, meaning a deal needs to be reached within the next couple of days to begin the legislative process to meet that timeframe.

Thune said earlier Sunday that lawmakers were making “some headway” in talks to reopen DHS, warning that things could get “pretty bad” if a deal isn’t reached in the coming days.

He said the Trump administration’s plans to send ICE agents to airports to help bolster TSA staffing is “evidence of how sort of desperate things have become at our airports.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told “State of the Union” on Sunday the plan to send ICE agents to airports was an effort to “squeeze lawmakers to try to finally come up with a plan to fund DHS.”

“It’s unfortunate that Republicans have decided that they would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country and now potentially expose them to untrained ICE agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land, rather than get ICE agents under control,” Jeffries said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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