Chemists caught up in journey nervousness at ACS Spring 2026

Atlanta—As attendees on the American Chemical Society Spring 2026 assembly headed residence, some expressed nervousness over wait instances in safety traces or the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers at airports.

The matter of journey was even broached unprompted at Sunday’s ACS Board open assembly. Wayne E. Jones Jr., chair of the board of administrators and director-at-large of ACS, in response to a query about giving recommendation to graduate college students and postdocs, mentioned, “If you’re in this room, then you’ve successfully already navigated, perhaps, getting into the country. So that’s amazing. . . . I bet there are people in this room who were told they weren’t going to get through a TSA [Transportation Security Administration] line and they made it.” (ACS publishes C&EN.)

A partial authorities shutdown affecting the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has left members of the TSA unpaid for weeks for the second time since October of final 12 months. That’s led to elevated wait instances in safety traces at many US airports as fewer TSA brokers are exhibiting as much as work.

The wait instances at safety seem unpredictable, however some attendees touring again from the assembly in current days reported hours-long safety wait instances at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

“I arrived at the airport early, and it took me about 3 hours to pass through security,” mentioned Wei Sun, a chemical biologist at Virginia Tech who attended the assembly and shared his expertise with C&EN through e mail. “The queue was incredibly long, almost reaching the outside of the departure lobby. That said, despite the stress, I have to say that people were generally calm and in order while waiting. The staff at ATL were working very hard to help passengers, and I truly appreciate the TSA staff coming to work despite not being paid due to the partial government shutdown at the time.”

Among the halls of the Georgia World Congress Center, and in lunch traces and low breaks, chatter about which safety traces have been quickest and the way early to reach on the airport was unavoidable.

Scott Bagley, this system chair for the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry, instructed C&EN that there was considerably decrease attendance on the Thursday morning talks, which he mentioned was doubtless as a result of folks have been electing to skip talks and get to the airport early. Bagley mentioned it took him about 24 min to undergo the TSA precheck line within the late morning on Thursday. Just a few hours earlier, one of many C&EN reporting staff waited for over an hour and a half.

But wait instances weren’t the one fear for some. On Sunday, President Donald J. Trump introduced that ICE brokers could be deployed to airports to assist handle the crowds. Although the brokers’ function is formally restricted, Trump mentioned they could make arrests. That made some attendees uneasy about journey.

An assistant professor at an R1 college within the US, who requested to stay nameless in order to not jeopardize her inexperienced card, mentioned that when she heard that ICE was going to be on the airport, her first thought was about learn how to defend her worldwide graduate scholar. “I’m in as much danger as my students, but I have to be the adult in the room.” She didn’t have the luxurious, she mentioned, of panicking as a lot as she felt like panicking.

She suggested the coed to talk as little as attainable within the safety line to keep away from drawing consideration to her accent. The scholar made it via the road and onto her airplane with out incident.

The assistant professor referred to as ICE “the elephant in the room nobody is talking about” brazenly on the convention—however among the many attendees, she mentioned, a whisper community fashioned with folks advising one another on which checkpoints had the shortest traces and the fewest brokers. Many worldwide researchers working at US establishments elected to cancel their flights and drive if they might, she added.

On Wednesday, the assistant professor mentioned, she left her lodge for the airport greater than 6 hours earlier than her scheduled flight time. She instructed C&EN later through textual content message that it took her 40 min to get via safety, and she or he noticed two ICE brokers. Waiting as the road moved previous the brokers, she wrote, was the “longest 3 min of my life.”

Max Barnhart is an assistant editor and life sciences reporter at C&EN.

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