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.
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…
