I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn this, but there’s a new level of cooperation between government agencies in the United States, which could lead to more airport arrests, including of domestic travelers.
In this post:
Airline passenger data is helping Trump’s deportation efforts
The New York Times reports how the Trump administration is increasingly using the airline tickets that people book to help with deportation efforts.
When passengers book airline tickets, it’s standard that the data is provided to the TSA, and is compared against national security databases, to identify people on watch lists, suspected terrorists, etc. The TSA hasn’t historically used this information to get involved in domestic criminal or immigration matters. However, that has now changed.
Under a program that was launched in March 2025, multiple times per week, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shares the names of all travelers booked on flights with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE then matches the list against its own database of people subject to deportation, and sends agents to airports to arrest people.
This is of course being done as part of the goal of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in United States history. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson released a statement that “the message to those in the country illegally is clear: the only reason you should be flying is to self-deport home.”
A former deputy head of the ICE office in New York City said the following about this program:
“The administration has turned routine travel into a force multiplier for removals, potentially identifying thousands who thought they could evade the law simply by boarding a plane. This isn’t about fear; it’s about restoring order and ensuring every American knows their government enforces its laws without apology.”
An example of how this program was recently used
Last month, there was a story that got quite a bit of attention about Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old who was attending college in Boston. On November 20, 2025, she showed up at the airport in Boston to fly to Texas to visit her family for Thanksgiving.
Moments before getting on her flight, she was told there as a problem with her boarding pass, and on her way to the customer service desk, she was “surrounded, (placed) in handcuffs, and dragged out of the airport,” according to her attorney.
Within 48 hours, she was deported to Honduras, a country she hadn’t lived in since she was seven years old, when her parents brought her to the United States, while seeking asylum. Her attorney claims she was removed even after a federal judge issued an order barring the government from removing her outside of Massachusetts. She was also never shown a warrant, a removal order, or given any explanation, by ICE officials.
DHS claims that an immigration judge ordered her removal in 2015, but she “illegally stayed in the country since.” Meanwhile her attorney claims the only record he found in the government’s database indicates her case was closed in 2017.
Obviously immigration is a contentious topic. I think a vast majority of reasonable people agree that violent criminals should be deported (I certainly do!). But my heart breaks for children who were brought to this country by their parents (through no choice of their own), and are now being sent to a country that is really “foreign” to them, and that they don’t really know.
At this point it seems like the government is deporting people just to reach a quota. I mean, top White House official Stephen Miller has made it a goal for 3,000 people to be arrested everyday for immigration. To me, it’s sad when you’re deporting people just to deport them, especially someone like this young woman, who was trying to contribute positively to society, was pursuing education, etc.
But hey, I have to be balanced. We live in a democracy, and not in my imaginary dream world. Trump promised the largest mass deportation in history, and that’s what we’re getting.
Bottom line
In recent months, the TSA has started frequently sharing airline passenger lists with ICE, in order to facilitate airport arrests of people subject to deportation orders. Historically, domestic passenger data hasn’t been used for these purposes, but instead, the data was just shared in order to screen potential terrorists.
If the goal is to simply deport as many people as possible, then I can see how using airports is one of the easier ways to do so — you know exactly where and when someone will be, and if they’ve been screened by the TSA, you also know they don’t have weapons.
If you’re someone who might be subject to deportation in the United States, then it’s probably worth being aware of this new reality…
Regardless of how you feel about deportations in general, there is good evidence that in 2024 (under Biden) more people were deported than in 2025 (under Trump). Google it.
So what? What's the point? Even if deportations were higher, the current push is clearly driven by extrajudicial military incursions into American cities and stunning cruelty and denial of due process that were not taking place under Biden. Google it.
Reading these comments, it just reminds me of how hard it is to be a slightly right of center political moderate in our world now. Left wingers are hyper judgmental and will hound someone to hell and back for lacking idealogical purity, and right wingers will furiously tear into anyone who has the temerity to speak publicly in a way that even perceptually contradicts the latest whim of their orange emperor with no clothes.
Being...
Reading these comments, it just reminds me of how hard it is to be a slightly right of center political moderate in our world now. Left wingers are hyper judgmental and will hound someone to hell and back for lacking idealogical purity, and right wingers will furiously tear into anyone who has the temerity to speak publicly in a way that even perceptually contradicts the latest whim of their orange emperor with no clothes.
Being as the right wingers have the most institutional power now, and behaviorally are far more vicious than their counterparts on the left, I'm looking forward to the implosion of their intellectually and morally hollow party.
Seriously folks - cruelty is a party of the Republican platform now. It's a damn shame.
Lots of Hispanics voted for this. I have empathy for those who didn't and are now being impacted. The others, not one drop of sympathy.
Seems to me that people with the right to vote; ie, citizens; aren't the ones being targeted.
That's complete nonsense, PeteAU. Anyone with brown skin is targeted. The US government petitioned for the right to racially profile FFS! Citizens are routinely manhandled and wrongly detained by the orange boy king's de facto national police force. This is utter madness and any attempt to rationalize it is either fueled by the absence of education, the presence of denial or just a desire to be obtuse.
get them all out
Ah, MAGA's version of "The New Colossus":
"Give me your healthy, your wealthy, your international elite looking to obtain residency as a hedge against political or financial instability in their home countries."
What ? The entire US population apart from the indigenous people.
How this any different than other countries that pull visa overstays aside during exit customs and prevent them from coming back? Over stay your visa in Australia by a couple of years and see how fast you get through exit customs.
Orange Man Bad
The difference is they are crossing an international border at that point and directly interfacing with that country’s CBP equivalent.
Australian Border Force also raids farms, factories, and private residences in the search for over-stayers. Overstay you visa in Singapore and you face a mandatory prison sentence plus a caning. Most countries take the matter very seriously indeed.
What happened to that student is horrendous and sickening. I wonder if one way around it for those people who still want to travel domestically is to book last minute tickets when possible, so the information doesn't get communicated to the gestapo in time.
A better idea would be to get out and vote for people who don’t support the gestapo.
The next US President must abolish ICE.
We can all argue on how this information sharing is used to arrest people and whether it’s appropriate.
But from a pure fact that TSA and CBP/ICE are sharing information is actually done by every other country out there too. Canada fully admits they use it to enforce warrants and immigration offenses too. They cite the same reasons to share this information. Heck they used it to enforce vaccine requirements in Canada to fly domestically...
We can all argue on how this information sharing is used to arrest people and whether it’s appropriate.
But from a pure fact that TSA and CBP/ICE are sharing information is actually done by every other country out there too. Canada fully admits they use it to enforce warrants and immigration offenses too. They cite the same reasons to share this information. Heck they used it to enforce vaccine requirements in Canada to fly domestically and shared health databases too.
So to think this is a shock or surprise or something new or unique to America is….naive.
Every other country does the same … fly domestically in Scandinavia…..and you are there ilegally. Expect to be arrested on your domestic flight to Tromsö…
The critical distinction you're missing is that other nations enforce immigration law without making racial and ethnic scapegoating the centerpiece of their enforcement strategy.
Much like the earlier example of Australia, here's something Canada hasn't done - petition their Supreme Court for the legal right to use someone's perceived race or ethnicity as sufficient grounds to detain them for immigration violations.
What we're witnessing is textbook sam durak whataboutism - the same Russian tactic of...
The critical distinction you're missing is that other nations enforce immigration law without making racial and ethnic scapegoating the centerpiece of their enforcement strategy.
Much like the earlier example of Australia, here's something Canada hasn't done - petition their Supreme Court for the legal right to use someone's perceived race or ethnicity as sufficient grounds to detain them for immigration violations.
What we're witnessing is textbook sam durak whataboutism - the same Russian tactic of deflecting legitimate criticism by claiming "everyone does it." But the comparison falls apart under scrutiny. This administration has weaponized immigration enforcement as part of a broader authoritarian playbook that targets racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities as enemies of the state. Sure, they parade a few token members of these groups for political cover. But anyone paying attention knows what's really happening. Your false equivalencies don't withstand even basic examination.
Love it
For scale: at 3,000 per day, it would take TEN YEARS to equal the amount of people the Biden administration admitted in just four. Insane.
Source?
@ Julia
The source is fox.
@Julia Google is free and so are calculators. That was a low estimate based on liberal media. Based on Fox’s and others it could be 15-20 years. Don’t be afraid to look up every once in a while.
Let’s imagine a 7-year-old child whose parents commit a crime and are jailed.
Now, this child is separated from their parents for years, which is exactly as traumatic and life shattering as it sounds.
Does our heart break for this child? Yes. Is the solution to overlook the parents’ crime?
That’s a great strawman!
Now, tell us the crime you’re envisioning for the parent/s so we can judge them appropriately.
Next, tell us the child’s skin color so we can determine whether or not to deport them with the parent/s.
Ugh, it’s so difficult playing Solomon isn’t it?
Families that are deported together stay together!
The child can be deported together with the parents.
Hey Simon. Your analogy fails because unlawful presence is a civil violation, not a crime, and deporting the child punishes them for something they didn't do by exiling them from the only country they've ever known.
Simply being in the U.S. without authorization (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil violation, not a crime. It leads to deportation proceedings and fines, but not criminal prosecution. However, how you entered matters. Crossing the border illegally (improper...
Hey Simon. Your analogy fails because unlawful presence is a civil violation, not a crime, and deporting the child punishes them for something they didn't do by exiling them from the only country they've ever known.
Simply being in the U.S. without authorization (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil violation, not a crime. It leads to deportation proceedings and fines, but not criminal prosecution. However, how you entered matters. Crossing the border illegally (improper entry under 8 U.S.C. §1325) is a federal misdemeanor. Re-entering after deportation (illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. §1326) is a felony.
So overstaying your visa = civil matter. Illegally crossing the border or sneaking back after deportation = criminal offense with potential jail time. Sources: American Immigration Council, ACLU, Title 8 U.S. Code.
I'm no fan of ICE, but it is common practice for TSA to reach out to LE agencies when a traveler has an arrest warrant.
It’s also common to bake cakes for peoples’ birthdays.
That also has nothing to do with this piece.
Well, okay. I'm glad you were able to puff up a bit today.
Why are so many Americans against border control and guarding our sovereignty? Maybe you think they are too aggressive?? I remember vividly in early 90s on a bus from Amsterdam to Calais at midnight, we were stopped by French border guards. About 3 or 4 people were arrested and removed from the bus. Was that such a bad thing back then?
PreCheck and Global Entry?
With all your biometrics.
You all actually enrolled in PreArrest and Global Deportation.
And you even paid for it.
Your mastery of the obvious is masterful.
Do you have any friends in the real world?
Anybody who supports this deserves to die of cancer.
If your annual income is EIGHT FIGURES, you can pay for the illegals! How about putting your money where your mouth is?
Maybe they'll deport you to Germany too
Maybe you’re a cunt.