TSA Turned Over 31,000 Traveler Records to ICE for Immigration Arrests, Internal Data Shows

The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly feeding passenger data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a scale far beyond what the public knew, according to internal agency records reviewed by Reuters. Since the start of Donald Trump's second presidency through February 2026, TSA shared information on more than 31,000 travelers with ICE, resulting in over 800 arrests.

This is not what TSA's Secure Flight Program was built to do. Congress created the program in 2007 to screen passengers against terrorism watchlists -- not to help ICE round up people for deportation. The regulation establishing Secure Flight explicitly describes it as a counter-terrorism measure. But under Trump, DHS has repurposed that infrastructure to advance his mass deportation agenda.

Both TSA and ICE operate under the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to questions about the data-sharing arrangement. TSA offered only a vague statement about "pursuing solutions that improve resiliency, security and efficiency" under Trump. No data was available for how many traveler records TSA shared with ICE before Trump's second term.

Arrests at Airports Spark Backlash

While Reuters could not determine how many of the 800-plus arrests happened inside airports, the TSA tips would primarily help ICE identify when someone would be traveling -- making airports a convenient chokepoint for enforcement.

Several high-profile airport arrests have drawn public outrage. ICE detained a college student traveling from Boston to Texas for Thanksgiving in November. Officers arrested a sobbing mother at San Francisco International Airport the day before Trump deployed ICE to more than a dozen airports in March. DHS defended both arrests, saying the individuals were subject to final removal orders.

Immigration attorney Christina Canty described a case involving an Irish couple who had lived in the US for more than 20 years. They were detained in front of their children at a Florida airport while flying to New York after a vacation in summer 2025. Despite having pending applications for permanent residency, both parents were deported -- leaving their two young children, ages 7 and 10, with adult siblings in the US.

Another case involved a Chinese woman with a pending permanent residency application who was detained by ICE at the Atlanta airport while traveling to Philadelphia, according to one of three immigration attorneys interviewed by Reuters.

Funding Fight Leaves TSA Officers Unpaid

The aggressive airport enforcement has become a flashpoint in a broader partisan battle over immigration funding. Since mid-February, Democrats have refused to approve additional money for Trump's deportation machine without reforms to curb tactics they view as abusive and indiscriminate.

That standoff blocked passage of a DHS funding bill, which meant TSA security officers missed at least two full paychecks. When unpaid officers began calling in sick, Trump deployed ICE agents to more than a dozen airports in March to fill security gaps -- a move Democrats have condemned as both a safety risk and an intimidation tactic.

More than 40 House Democrats wrote to newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding the removal of ICE officers from airports, warning they "will cause confusion and fear" among travelers.

The deployment underscores how Trump has militarized civilian spaces in service of his immigration crackdown. Airports -- where millions of Americans pass through each year -- have become sites of enforcement that blur the line between national security screening and immigration policing. The 31,000 traveler records TSA handed over represent a massive expansion of surveillance infrastructure originally sold to the public as protection against terrorism, now redirected toward a domestic deportation campaign.