Montrose resident Nancy Culwell carried a printed yellow-and-black sign around Houston City Hall on Saturday declaring a message that the thousands who surrounded her appeared to support: “ICE Out! We Will Defend Our Neighbors.”
Many Houstonians have been literally screaming for almost a year that they don’t want immigration enforcement removing people from the community, and now there’s another layer to their message: end the government shutdown that’s causing four-hour delays in the TSA security line at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Workers haven’t been paid and aren’t showing up to do their jobs, a situation President Donald Trump could end if he’d stop playing politics, Culwell said.
“We’re standing up for our democracy,” she said. “No wars. No ICE. No shutdown. We’re tired of having our tax dollars go to criminal acts. He’s a felon and he needs to be booted out of office with all his cronies. I think protesting builds community and if we can get to a certain percentage of people who are saying they don’t want this kind of leadership, that could be the way we turn things blue.”
Congress has been at a standoff since mid-February over Department of Homeland Security funding, which covers TSA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Senate voted earlier this week to pass a funding bill that excludes ICE. A House vote is pending, but some Republicans have said they’re not willing to compromise on defunding ICE without getting something in return. Congress is in recess through April 10.
Elected officials on both sides of the aisle have blamed each other for the shutdown, which escalated earlier this week when Trump deployed ICE agents to 14 American airports, including Houston’s IAH and Hobby, on March 23. The initiative was billed as a goodwill gesture to assist TSA and move the lines faster, but wait times at IAH spiked when the federal officers showed up.
Trump signed an executive order on Friday to pay TSA employees and acknowledged that America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point. Some employees could see checks as early as Monday, the President said. Protesters at Saturday’s event, however, said they don’t put a lot of stock in Trump’s promises.
Travelers told the Houston Press that the “swarm” of ICE agents appeared to be at the airport to intimidate people rather than actually help. By Friday, reports circulated that the federal officers were checking IDs, further spreading fear among immigrants, whether they’re documented or not.
U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, who represents Texas District 18, said Friday that Democrats got Senate Republicans on board to support funding TSA immediately and “leave the question of ICE funding for another day.”
“And now House Republicans are standing in the way, refusing to call a vote on a deal already approved by Senate Republicans, and letting TSA workers continue to go without pay for no good reason,” Menefee said in a statement.
Social media exploded over the weekend with photos of Congressional Republicans sailing past TSA lines with their security guards to go on vacation during the recess.
U.S. Rep. Al Green, Menefee’s opponent in a May 28 runoff for the Democratic nomination in District 18, attended Saturday’s protest and told the Press he’s outraged by what’s going on in Washington, D.C.
“The President is putting politics above people,” Green said. “The real reason the shutdown continues is President Trump is requiring the passage of bills unrelated to the shutdown. He wants to kill the filibuster, and if he can accomplish this, he’ll do some other dastardly things.”
University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus, who wasn’t at the No Kings event, said polling suggests that Americans blame both political parties for the long airport lines but Trump has taken the brunt of it because “he’s the one rejecting overtures from the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to solving the shutdown.”
“There have been efforts to try to separate ICE from TSA and it’s been rejected,” he said. “As that narrative hardens, I think you’ll see people blame the President more.”
That’s certainly what was happening at Saturday’s No Kings protest. Houston’s gathering, which an HPD officer estimated drew more than 7,000 people over the course of the four-hour event, was one of about 3,300 peaceful protests across the country.
No Kings protesters weren’t just talking about ICE and the TSA situation at the airport. Signs called for Trump’s impeachment, an end to the war in Iran and accused the administration of lying, misusing taxpayer money and harming children. Popular signs included, “OMG GOP WTF,” “A Woman Could Fix This,” “No Faux King Way,” and “Help Fight Truth Decay.”
Spring Branch resident John Nicks said he’s “tired of Trump destroying our country.”
“We need to get rid of ICE,” he said. “We need to fully fund TSA. We need to expand Medicaid. It’s only going to get worse. It’s gotten so bad that people are thinking of leaving the country.”
Friends Kim and Marie, who did not want to use their last names in this article, drove in from The Woodlands to catch Some Like It Hot at the Hobby Center and a basketball game downtown, but their first stop of the day was the protest at City Hall. The women said they wanted to speak up for those who live in fear of retaliation.
“We’re tired of everything,” Kim said, pointing out a placard that read, “My outrage doesn’t fit on this sign.”
“I think I’m setting an example for my children,” she added. “We have to speak up. We can’t just ignore it when things are wrong. A lot of people are upset, and this is a way we can make sure that’s visible.”
Marie noted that her daughter, a college student, participated in a campus protest against the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and the effort wasn’t well-received. She said her daughter discouraged her from dressing up and carrying signs to a No Kings protest last year, telling Marie she might get arrested. “I said let them arrest me,” Marie said. “I’m here to peacefully protest. We need to be able to do this. We have to stand up for democracy.”
Local No Kings demonstrations were held in June and October 2025. Saturday’s event was the first large organized protest in Houston since American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in January. Rottinghaus told the Press that the fight over ICE has become far removed from the reason it was initiated: violence against people who aren’t savage criminals and whose immigration status isn’t being questioned.
“The Democrats need to return to that messaging if they’re going to be successful,” Rottinghaus said. “They were winning on that, and the polling was very clear on that. Democrats were willing to fight that battle and shut down this fraction of the government as a result. It’s easy to do in the abstract. It’s harder to do when you’ve got lines out the door at the airports.”
It’s unknown how long the shutdown will continue, the professor added.
“Honestly, the ball is in President Trump’s court,” he said. “He’s got to make a concession on this, and if he doesn’t, it could last for a while. President Trump is pretty erratic, so trying to pin him down and getting him to make a deal may be harder than expected.”
Dale Tucker said he hoped Saturday’s protests across the country would send a message to Trump.
“There’s a taxable amount on my IRS forms for social security that he said he wasn’t going to have,” Tucker said. “He started a war that he said he wasn’t going to have. He said he was going to end the Ukraine War in 24 hours and then he took Putin’s side. Trump is a living reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. ICE is the secret service that Hitler had. They did the same thing to the Jews. He’s getting the world in a war, and he’s going to lose. I’m hoping he gets impeached this year.”