The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is being fed the data of all air travellers in the United States, according to a New York Times report. With US President Donald Trump having vowed to make way for the biggest deportation sweep in the country, a new report indicated that ICE gets a list of travellers, who are expected to come through airports, from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
ICE then tallies the information with its own database of people potentially listed for deportation or who, as viewed by the agency, pose a threat to America. Thereafter, the agency sends its agents to detain these individuals at the airport itself. A few incidents matching these description have already made headlines in the past few months.
How air passenger data may be linked to deportation efforts
According to documents obtained by the NYT, a college student named Any Lucía López Belloza was arrested at Boston Logan Airport on November 20, when she was on her way to surprise her family in Texas. She was eventually deported to Honduras days later due to the reported partnership between ICE and TSA.
US reports, including NBC News, had previously cited US authorities, stating that an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza be deported in 2015. However, her attorney, Todd Pomerleau said that he had not been able to locate any record of her supposed deportation order from years ago.
Although initially detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the report relayed details of internal documents, showing that her arrest was tied to an ICE office in California. The establishment in question, called the Pacific Enforcement Response Center, is said to have played a major role in the reported airport program.
As per the documents reviewed by the NYT, the very same office was instrumental in putting across Lopez’s flight information to ICE officers in Boston. The report claimed that the office sends tips to immigration officials across the US, while also requesting local jails to hold immigrants.
Lopez’s case particularly became an attention-worthy issue as she had no criminal records. With plans to spend Thanksgiving with her family, she was meant to go home. The student is now in Honduras, and trying to figure out how to transfer colleges, as per NYT. While in the US, she was studying business as a freshman at Babson College.
Lopez Belloza’s family emigrated from Honduras when she was 7 years old, according to NBC News.
TSA did not get involved in criminal or immigration matters earlier
It may be nothing out of the ordinary for airlines to pass on passenger information to TSA after their flight is reserved, as the shared information is then compared with federal databases over concerns for national security. This process also includes checking on the Terrorist Screening Dataset, which includes names of already identified or suspected terrorists posing threat to the country, as per the NYT.
However, the outright connection between immigration authorities and the TSA made questionable waves. The NYT report further showed that the collaboration between airport security and immigration officials started on quiet terms in March despite being previously unprecedented.
The TSA originally steered clear of checking on such matters involving potential domestic criminals or other immigration issues, a former agency official shared with the NYT. Sharing further insight into the matter, the official said that such activities involving enforcement at airports even lead to longer passenger delays.
Another former senior ICE official spoke to NYT on the condition of anonymity, revealing that the aforementioned California office sometimes got a flagged passenger’s flight data, including departure time and their photo for identification, just hours before their plane was meant to take off.