Trump Administration Instructs U.S. Airports to Feed ICE the Name of Every Passenger: Report 

The Trump administration has directed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to regularly share passenger information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a report by The New York Times.

Since March, TSA has been providing ICE with lists of travelers multiple times a week. ICE can then cross-reference those names with its internal databases to identify people who are subject to deportation or detention.

Both TSA and ICE operate under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

When asked for comment, a DHS spokesperson described the practice as routine rather than new.

“Back in February, Secretary 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,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”

Typically, airlines provide traveler information to TSA after tickets are booked, so the agency can screen passengers against the Terrorist Screening Dataset and other national security databases. Before this expanded partnership, TSA generally did not involve itself in immigration enforcement or domestic criminal investigations, a former TSA official told the New York Times.

It remains unclear how many people have been arrested as a direct result of this data-sharing arrangement.

However, the Times reports that the arrest and deportation of college student Any Lucía López Belloza appears to have stemmed from the program. López Belloza, 19, was detained at Boston’s Logan Airport on Nov. 20 and deported to Honduras. The Babson College freshman had been brought to the United States from Honduras at age 7. She and her family reportedly did not know she was subject to deportation.

Weeks earlier, Marta Brizeyda Renderos Leiva, a woman from El Salvador, was arrested at the Salt Lake City airport. Both López Belloza’s and Leiva’s arrests were flagged by the Pacific Enforcement Response Center, an office in California that alerts ICE field offices around the country to locate, arrest and detain immigrants, according to the Times.

The report on TSA and ICE coordination comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to tap into other federal databases for immigration enforcement, including those maintained by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In April, the IRS and DHS reached an agreement that would have allowed DHS to access tax data for undocumented immigrants. In November, however, a federal court blocked that proposal, CNN reported.