TSA Tipped Off ICE Agents Before Arrests at San Francisco Airport

quote:

---

The documents shed new light on how the Transportation Security Administration is sharing with ICE officials the names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by a judge. That has made it easier for the Trump administration to detain and deport undocumented immigrants as they pass through airports.

Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, a native of Guatemala, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, were flagged by T.S.A. officials on Friday when they showed up on a passenger list for a Sunday flight from San Francisco to Miami. The agency then tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the documents.

Ms. Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter were living in Contra Costa County, Calif., on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the congressman for that region, John Garamendi. She had no criminal history, though she entered the country illegally.

Democratic officials recoiled this week at the detention. Mr. Garamendi, a Democrat, said that it was the latest example of how the Trump administration was rounding up mothers and children instead of focusing its immigration enforcement on dangerous criminals.

He also condemned the sharing of passenger information by T.S.A. with ICE, saying that data sharing seemed to be “omnipresent” under the Trump administration, putting personal information at risk and bypassing due process.

“The real story here is the way in which databases are being used,” he said in an interview. “A mother and her daughter are detained, and within 36 hours, they’re sent to Guatemala.”

---