Exclusive-ICE arrested more than 800 people after tips from US airport security agency
By Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 800 people following tips shared by federal airport security officials from the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency through February 2026. Internal ICE data reviewed by Reuters shows the figure is well above what was previously publicly known.
The tips came from the Transportation Security Administration, which provided ICE with records of more than 31,000 travelers for possible immigration enforcement, according to the data.
Reuters was unable to determine how many arrests have occurred at airports, but the TSA’s tips will be useful mainly in determining when a person is traveling.
ICE and TSA are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The organizations have shared information about national security threats in the past, but they began focusing on routine immigration detentions last year as part of Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
TSA PROGRAM WAS DESIGNED TO FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM
The records of 31,000 passengers were collected by TSA’s Secure Flight Program, which was created in 2007 to allow the agency to review passenger information for people who might be on U.S. government watch lists. The program was intended as a counter-terrorism measure, not to pursue immigration criminals, according to regulations that define its purpose.
DHS did not respond to questions about TSA providing passenger information to ICE, but said that under Trump, TSA is “pursuing solutions that improve resiliency, security, and efficiency across our entire system.”
Figures on arrests and travel records that TSA shared with ICE before Trump’s current term were not available.
U.S. airports and immigration enforcement have been at the center of a partisan funding battle since mid-February, when Democrats refused to support additional money for the Republican president’s fight against immigration without reforms that would reduce aggressive tactics.
The standoff blocked passage of a bill that would have funded DHS, causing TSA security guards to miss at least two paychecks. Trump deployed ICE officers to more than a dozen airports in March to assist with security efforts after some unpaid TSA agents began calling in sick.
Democrats criticized the deployments and called on the Trump administration to remove them. A group of more than 40 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote in a letter last week to newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that ICE officers would “cause confusion and fear” if allowed to remain at airports.
REPORTS OF UNEXPECTED ARREST AT THE AIRPORT
Several cases of ICE officers detaining passengers at US airports have sparked outrage.
ICE officers detained a college student traveling from Boston to Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving in November and arrested a crying mother at San Francisco International Airport the day before Trump was inaugurated at the airport.
DHS defended both detentions and said they were subject to final deportation orders.
Reuters spoke with three immigration lawyers who said they were familiar with cases where people without legal immigration status were detained at airports.
Christina Canty, one of the lawyers, said that the cases included an Irish couple who had been living in the United States for more than two decades and were detained by immigration authorities in front of their children while trying to fly from Florida to New York after vacation last summer.
Parents awaiting applications for permanent residency were deported, leaving their two young children, ages 7 and 10, in the U.S. with their adult siblings, Canty said.
In another case, a Chinese woman who had received a final deportation order and sought permanent residence was detained by ICE at the Atlanta airport on her way to Philadelphia last year, one of the attorneys said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Rod Nickel)
