ICE Used Passenger Information To Detain Hundreds Of People At Airports: Report

More than 800 people have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement based on tips from airport security since President Trump took office, according to a new report.

Reuters reported that an anti-terrorism database with information about 31,000 travelers was shared by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) with ICE as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement activities.

The wire service added that the data was gathered as part of the Secure Flight Program. Although that program was created as a counterterrorism initiative, it is now being used as part of immigration offenders.

TSA and ICE are both part of the Department of Homeland Security and have historically shared information as part of national security. Critics, however, believe the amount of information available about individuals has the effect of moving toward a surveillance state.

“We have moved into an era in which the government can have total knowledge of every single individual,” U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-California, told USA TODAY.

Flight information shared with ICE apparently was used in the detention of Angelina Lopez-Jimenez, 41, and her 9-year-old daughter on March 22. The pair had planned to take a flight out of San Francisco and were stopped at the airport by plainclothes federal officers.

USA TODAY added that Lopez-Jimenez entered the U.S. illegally in 2018 when her daughter was an infant. The pair were deported to Guatemala on March 24.

Lopez-Jimenez lives in Congressman Garamendi’s California district.

“They’re using those databases to identify individuals for, in this case, apprehension and to be deported, regardless of what they have done in the United States,” he added.