Lori Trahan

Ask U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan who owns the partial government shutdown that’s made air travel even more trying than it usually is, and you’ll get a swift and certain answer.

“The president and congressional Republicans have had a very clear proposal in front of them from the jump,” Trahan, D-3rd District, said of efforts by her and her fellow Democrats to pay Transportation Security Administration personnel while seeking a broader resolution to the standoff over funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“It’s completely unnecessary that there are lines in our airports, that there is ICE dispatched in our airports at a time when TSA agents should just be paid and people should be able to move through our airports freely,” Trahan said Tuesday.

The Lowell lawmaker offered her thoughts after she toured the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington, Mass., about 30 minutes north of Boston.

“Nothing I saw or heard today has persuaded me that Democrats should relent in our fight to rein in a president who has recklessly surged and increased funding to ICE,” Trahan told reporters.

Employees at the polarizing agency have continued to be paid during the six-week-long shutdown, even as TSA officers have missed paychecks and quit by the hundreds.

ICE agents are now buttressing TSA officers at some U.S. airports as a result.

“Now, while Trump and Republicans defend all of this, they are holding the entirety of DHS hostage. TSA agents, coast guardsmen and women, leading counterterrorism officials, the people who are charged with keeping us safe every day, are having their pay and their benefits used as leverage,” Trahan said. “They are protecting an enforcement regime that this country is not behind. I know that I will not stop pushing for accountability.”

The ICE field office, which sits just steps away from the sprawling Burlington Mall, has emerged as the Bay State’s stand-in for the nation’s broader debate over the Republican White House’s hardline mass deportation campaign.

Other members of Massachusetts’ all-Democrat Capitol Hill delegation have toured the facility, each using it to offer their own pointed critiques of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“I came here to observe the facilities and to ask questions and to demand answers on behalf of my constituents,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, said after she visited the office earlier this month.

“I’m leaving here with my position unchanged—that we need to defund and abolish ICE," the Boston lawmaker continued. “And, you know, it’s really important that we continue to conduct vigorous oversight.”

On a chilly Tuesday morning, people could be seen entering and leaving through its front entrance. At the same time, activists who handed out food, winter clothing, diapers, stuffed animals, and referrals for legal advice kept up a months-long vigil at the edge of the parking lot.

For one of those activists, Lydia Van Evera, “just knowing that we can help and that we’re making a small difference in their lives,” helps to keep her going, she said.

On Tuesday, reports emerged that an end to the standoff could be near, after a group of U.S. Senate Republicans met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday night.

They appeared optimistic that a deal with Democrats, who would need to put up their votes, could be within reach, CBS News reported.

Trump, meanwhile, has urged Senate Republicans to hold out until they pass a Voter ID bill that Democrats strongly oppose, CBS News also reported.

Republicans also will need Democratic votes to pass the Voter ID legislation.

A CBS News/YouGov poll released last week suggested a slight advantage for Democrats, who have offered their plans to pay TSA airport screeners.

Respondents were split, 31%-36%, on whether the Democrats’ insistence on reining in ICE made the shutdown worthwhile. Another 33% said they were unsure. The poll of 3,335 U.S. adults had a margin of error of 2.1%. That rendered those answers a statistical dead heat.

“Democrats refuse to fund essential services because they don’t like the outcome of the past election. They’ll have to own it,” said Jesse Hunt, a Washington D.C.-based Republican consultant with Bay State roots.

A separate poll of 1,000 Americans by The Daily Mail found a third of respondents (34%) blamed Republicans for the shutdown and the ensuing airport headaches.

“The media visuals of long lines are compelling and the frustration [that’s] building among travelers is influential,” UMass Amherst pollster Ray La Raja said. “The blame will stick to the side that looks like they are blocking a deal.”

Republicans are “already on the defensive for a lot of things,” La Raja said, referring to the broad public dissatisfaction over ICE’s confrontational tactics. “They will need to have a strong story to explain why ICE can’t make adjustments.”

In Burlington on Tuesday, Trahan said she’d be “heartened” if Trump did “the right thing on this.”