TSA Is Sharing Passenger Names with ICE and It’s Raising Red Flags
Like so many other government agencies that have gone rogue, you can now include the TSA and ICE.
ICE is tasked with finding illegal aliens, but in the process, it is trampling on the civil rights of all Americans.
ICE is surveilling and sifting through all citizens’ records to find the few that should be rightly deported. In that endeavor, many legitimate citizens have been caught in the dragnet. This is unacceptable. In previous years, data have been sketchy but disturbing. In 2025, however, statistics on wrongful detentions have ceased altogether. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.
The Transportation Security Administration is now sending lists of air travelers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a move that changes how airports are used for federal enforcement. TSA began providing these passenger name lists multiple times a week when the program started in March, according to reporting by The New York Times. ICE checks those names against its own lists of people with final orders of removal.
The public still does not know how many people have been deported as a result, but documents show at least two high-profile stops were linked to the data sharing. One such case involved Any Lucía López Belloza, a college student who was met by immigration officers at Boston Logan Airport and deported to Honduras two days later. Her arrest was flagged by an ICE office after receiving travel information shared through the program.
Boston ICE officers said a Pacific region unit alerted them after identifying a scheduled flight, noting the tip came from a collaboration “with Transportation Security Administration to send actionable leads to the field regarding aliens with a final order of removal that appear to have an impending flight scheduled.” That wording appears in internal records obtained by reporters. The same mechanism was used to flag the stop of Marta Brizeyda Renderos Leiva at a Salt Lake City airport in October.
Former ICE and TSA staff have described how the program operates, saying TSA supplies not just names but photos, flight numbers and departure times to help agents identify travelers. That level of operational detail marks a departure from the way passenger data has traditionally been handled at airports. Airlines have long matched passenger lists to federal watchlists, but TSA historically tried to avoid being a frontline immigration enforcement arm.
Officials at TSA were reportedly reluctant to let enforcement officers act inside busy airport terminals for good reasons. Concerns include delays, crowd disruption and the possible chilling effect on travelers, especially those unsure of their immigration status. One former official worried that heightened enforcement could scare people away from air travel and complicate security operations at checkpoints.
That caution is echoed by former ICE official Claire Trickler-McNulty, who warned about the broader consequences of airport arrests. “If you have more officers conducting arrests at airports, it puts more strain on the system, delays and complications may annoy and frighten some travelers, and those who are unsure about their status will move away from air travel,” she said. “It will continue to reduce the space where people feel safe going about their business.”
For defenders of the program, the argument is straightforward: sharing passenger data helps find people with final orders and prevents those individuals from slipping through airport checkpoints. Supporters say coordinated information can make enforcement more efficient and reduce the need for costly investigations later. Skeptics counter that the tradeoff is a loss of privacy and a risk of wrongful detention for innocent travelers.
This development prompts questions about legal authority, oversight and how many Americans may be swept into enforcement actions unintentionally. Records and reporting indicate the practice is active and expanding without broad public notice. Lawmakers and watchdogs will likely press for more transparency on how passenger names are collected, shared and used.
The debate touches on public safety, privacy and the role of border enforcement inside domestic travel hubs. As the program continues, the balance between identifying removable noncitizens and protecting civil liberties will stay front and center. Airports are changing from neutral transit points into locations where federal immigration priorities are increasingly enforced.