TSA Shares Passenger Lists with ICE in Escalation of Border Enforcement

By Solange Reyner | Friday, 12 December 2025 08:19 PM EST

In a significant escalation of interior immigration enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration has routinely been providing full airline passenger lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The practice began in March and involves several transfers per week of traveler data from TSA to ICE. It is part of a broader effort by federal authorities to identify and detain people subject to deportation orders before they board flights.

Under the arrangement, TSA supplies the full names of passengers flying into, out of, or within the United States. ICE agents then match those lists against their own databases of noncitizens with outstanding deportation orders. If a traveler appears on ICE’s list, agents may be dispatched to an airport to detain them, potentially preventing them from traveling and initiating removal proceedings.

Federal documents show that the cooperation between TSA and ICE has produced real-world consequences. One such example is 19-year-old college student Any Lucía López Belloza, who was reportedly detained at Boston’s Logan International Airport on November 20 when her name was flagged as she attempted to board a flight home. Two days later, she was deported to Honduras.

A former ICE official noted that in their region, about 75% of the cases flagged through the program resulted in arrests — a striking figure that suggests the data sharing has become a powerful enforcement tool.

This practice has come amid a broader crackdown on immigration by the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently touted “historic progress” in deportations, asserting that more than 600,000 deportations and nearly 2 million voluntary departures have occurred since early 2025.

The disclosure has sparked debate about civil liberties and privacy. Critics argue that handing over passenger lists to an enforcement agency without individualized warrants or judicial oversight raises serious constitutional concerns, particularly regarding unreasonable searches and seizures. They also warn of the risk of mistaken identity and the potential for ICE to detain people with tenuous ties to the deportation system.

Proponents of the data-sharing arrangement defend it as a logical use of information to enforce immigration laws and remove those with final orders of removal. Still, the program’s long-term implications for travel privacy, government surveillance, and civil liberties are likely to remain at the center of public debate.