SAN FRANCISCO — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration have expanded airport operations targeting undocumented immigrants and people with expired visas for detention, including travelers with no criminal records and no deportation orders, according to reports obtained and interviews conducted by The New York Times on July 28.
“Last night, The New York Times confirmed what many of us feared: That ICE is using airports to target for arrest and deportation a massive group of people who have committed no crime and for whom ICE has no deportation order,” California state Sen. Scott Wiener said in a July 29 press release.
These operations have been found at at least 15 airports, including San Francisco International Airport, or SFO, The New York Times reported.
“This incredibly broad category [of targets] includes hundreds of thousands of people who contribute to their communities every day,” Wiener said in his press release. “It includes the spouses of U.S. citizens, skilled workers and people who have received valid work permits while awaiting green cards or visa extensions.”
TSA and ICE did not work together unless the investigations were “lower-profile and noncontroversial” or the arrests involved “federal criminal offenses or public safety concerns, like drug smuggling and human trafficking,” according to CBS News. Since President Donald Trump began his second term, the two agencies have been working more closely together.
Also, before Trump’s second term, immigrants awaiting renewed visas or green cards were not deported unless they committed a crime. The Department of Homeland Security has not confirmed how many immigrants with expired visas have been detained under the new expansion, as it has yet to confirm the expansion of the program in general, according to The New York Times.
But the Trump administration has set a goal of arresting 2,000 immigrants a day, The New York Times also reported.
“[The Trump] 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,” a spokesperson for DHS said, CBS reported.
TSA has begun giving ICE “tips” and “leads,” according to CBS, and has found people traveling through airports to be “easy targets,” even though they lack criminal records.
ICE agents, both in and out of uniform, have begun detaining immigrants at check-in counters and arrival gates, The New York Times said.
Some incidents have reportedly been peaceful, while others have sparked outrage from fellow passengers, who have recorded and posted the incidents online.
Among the detainees was a 27-year-old Ecuadorian au pair who was detained by a “plainclothes officer” when trying to scan her boarding pass. An alarm promptly sounded, followed by the officers, The New York Times said.
A wheelchair-bound Ugandan woman who has sickle cell anemia and “an active asylum application” was detained by ICE as well, The New York Times also reported.
“These arrests are violent, dangerous and wrong,” Wiener said. “ICE is targeting people who have committed no crime, frequently throwing them to the ground and choking them in the middle of the airport as children and families look on.”
Wiener created the No Kings Act, SB 747, to “close an accountability loophole” and allow people to sue ICE, Border Patrol and other federal agents for violating their constitutional rights, according to Wiener’s Jan. 27 press release.
“ICE’s terror campaign must end,” Wiener said in his July 29 press release. “The first step is to end the impunity that supports ICE agents’ violent behavior. I’m authoring the No Kings Act to end ICE’s impunity by making it possible again to sue ICE officers and other federal agents for violating your constitutional rights. Only by creating consequences for these horrific acts can we put a stop to the terror ICE is inflicting on our communities.”
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