With federal immigration officers deployed to airports across the country, one McAllen-based immigration attorney said he’s concerned with the move.

“To put them in an airport just seems like it’s a trainwreck waiting to happen,” Carlos Garcia said.

On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents were deployed to airports to assist Transportation Security Administration staff members, according to the Associated Press.

READ MORE: ICE officers go to TSA checkpoints at Trump's direction, while long wait times at airports persist

Hundreds of thousands of Homeland Security workers, including from the TSA, have worked without pay since Congress failed to renew DHS funding last month. Many TSA agents have called in sick — or even quit their jobs — creating staffing shortages affecting travelers.

“We have immigration agents along our area who do extremely important work of interdicting drug smugglers, human smugglers,” Garcia said. “If you are taking those people away from their daily activities to put them to do something that they are not trained to do, that is also affecting our community."

ICE agents were assigned to both airports in Houston. They are not currently assigned to assist at airports in the Rio Grande Valley.