Federal employees from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement were deployed to Atlanta’s airport starting Monday morning.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations and ICE employees were sent to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and a little more than a dozen other airports around the country as the nation grapples with the hourslong wait times that have snarled travelers’ plans for more than a week.

A spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration did not immediately respond to questions about the immigration agents’ work.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement federal officials told him the ICE agents would be assigned to support the TSA’s operational needs, like line management and crowd control in the domestic terminals.

The agents will not engage in immigration enforcement on this deployment, he said.

“Our administration will continue to monitor the situation closely and remain in communication with the public and travelers as these federal actions develop,” Dickens said in the statement. “Atlanta remains committed to ensuring that residents and travelers feel safe, informed, and supported as they move through the world’s busiest and most efficient airport.”

By Sunday evening, the line for the north security checkpoint snaked around so many baggage carousels it was difficult to tell where it began.

There were so many passengers waiting with their luggage that even airport personnel were trying to figure out what to do with them.

“The only real estate we have is outside,” one woman in a bright yellow vest was heard telling other airport operations staff.

They were considering running the line of thousands of travelers out the door, down the sidewalk and back again.

Meanwhile, a number of people stuck in the line had resigned themselves to the fact they likely wouldn’t make their flights.

“I know I won’t make it,” said Troy Lawrence, who had hoped to make it back to Omaha, Nebraska, to open her child care center by 5:30 a.m.

Atlanta airport passenger Troy Lawrence sits on her suitcase Sunday as she waits in the hourslong security line that snaked through the north terminal. Lawrence said she was trying to make it back to Omaha, Nebraska, to open her child care facility in the morning. (Shaddi Abusaid/AJC)

She had been waiting in the security checkpoint more than two hours, but said she hadn’t moved an inch in at least 45 minutes.

President Donald Trump previously suggested on social media he might bring in ICE agents to fill gaps left by TSA agents during the ongoing partial government shutdown. Some TSA workers have quit and others are simply not showing up to work since they stopped getting paid in mid-February.

Missouri resident Bob Rzepkowski had just arrived in Atlanta after spending the weekend in Athens with about a dozen of his friends from college.