ICE Gets Airport Traveler Lists to Enforce Deportations, Sparking Debate
December 14, 2025
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has started getting detailed lists of people traveling through airports. These lists help ICE check if any traveler should be deported. The New York Times revealed this new system began in March. ICE now receives such lists several times a week, which was previously secret. The White House did not deny this coordination between departments. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, "The message to those in the country illegally is clear: The only reason you should be flying is to self-deport home." Another DHS official added that this policy is not new. They said, "Back in February, Secretary [Kristi] Noem reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country and do so without identification. Under President Trump, TSA and DHS will no longer tolerate this. This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport." Normally, airlines give passenger details to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) when a flight is booked. TSA compares these against national security databases to catch terrorists. But now, TSA is also helping ICE with immigration enforcement inside the country for the first time, according to a former agency official quoted by NYT. One example of this cooperation happened on November 20 at Boston Logan Airport. A college student, Any Lucía López Belloza, was arrested while flying to Texas for Thanksgiving. She and her family didn’t know she was under a deportation order from 2015, which she had not resolved. She came to the US from Honduras as a child seeking asylum and grew up in Texas. This case shows how the new system is helping ICE find those with deportation orders at the airport.
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Tags:
Ice
Travelers
Deportation
Tsa
Immigration
Us Airports
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