AARON KARP / WASHINGTON DC
Around 5,000 more law enforcement agents are to be made available as US air marshals under a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reorganisation.
The DHS plan will combine federal air marshals and customs and immigration security agents into one programme - a move the DHS says will make 5,000 more agents available for air marshal service.
The air marshal programme will move from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The TSA says the transfer will take place "within the next several months". Both the TSA and ICE are agencies within the DHS.
July reports that the air marshal programme had been hit by funding shortages and that the DHS planned to trim the programme drew strong protest from members of Congress.
US Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge last week announced a broad revamping of the DHS, a new federal department that opened earlier this year and into which the TSA was transferred from the Department of Transportation.
Under the new set-up, which includes a number of other structural changes at the DHS, the air marshal programme will be removed from the TSA's budget and instead be funded through ICE. Air marshals will become employees of ICE and ICE's 5,000 agents will train to operate as air marshals.
Source: Flight International