The Trump administration has previously sought to use IRS tax data to identify people suspected of being in the country illegally.
Growing concerns about ICE arrests at airports after SFO detention
A video of a woman being detained by plainclothes ICE officers from the SFO has gone viral online, sparking criticism and public backlash.
The deportation of a Guatemalan mother and daughter who were detained before boarding a plane raises new questions about how the Trump administration is using government databases to crack down on immigration.
The Transportation Security Administration has reportedly notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Angelina Lopez Jimenez and her 9-year-old daughter, who received a final removal order, are scheduled to depart on a domestic flight from San Francisco International Airport on March 22. That night, plainclothes ICE officers detained them at a California airport, a video circulating on social media confirmed.
Immigrant rights groups say the detention of López Jimenez, 41, and her daughter marks a new phase in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort, which relies in part on a body of government data to identify undocumented immigrants he deems eligible for deportation. Critics worry that the federal government is building a surveillance system that knows too much about ordinary people.
“We have entered an era in which the government has complete control over every individual’s information,” said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), who represents Contra Costa County, where López Jimenez and her daughter lived. He pointed to the administration’s plan to use IRS tax data along with Medicaid and Medicare directories to identify illegal aliens.
“They are using these databases to identify individuals who, in this case, will be arrested and deported, regardless of what they have done in the United States,” Garamendi said.
Lopez Jimenez and her daughter have no criminal history, Garamendi added. Under previous presidential administrations, they were considered a low priority for deportation.
But amid the regime’s promise to deport millions of people, the mother and daughter who showed up on the plane were immediately subject to deportation.
Why were mother and daughter detained at the airport?
A statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA and ICE, said Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter were issued final outstanding removal orders by an immigration judge in 2019.
Garamendi said López-Jiménez and her daughter lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for several years after crossing the border illegally in 2018, when López-Jiménez’s daughter was a toddler. My daughter attended a local school. Garamendi said he was scheduled to fly to Miami to visit family.
San Francisco police, which have a heavy presence at the airport, responded to the 911 call around 10 p.m., agency spokeswoman Eve Raokwansathitaya said in an email, adding that local police were not involved in the incident with federal immigration agents. Video showed police forming a barrier between plainclothes ICE officers and the surrounding crowd.
Raokwansathitaya said the San Francisco Police Department does not support civilian immigration enforcement, citing the city charter, state law and department policy.
DHS said the video of López-Jimenez crying and pleading for help while being detained by ICE agents was captured as a result of López-Jiménez’s attempt to flee and resist law enforcement.
ICE said Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter were removed on March 24 on a repatriation flight from Harlingen, Texas. Garamendi’s office said López-Jiménez and her daughter are safe in Guatemala with her family.
DHS: “Nothing new”
The New York Times reported that TSA notified ICE that López Jimenez and her daughter were on the plane’s passenger list.
“This is nothing new,” a Department of Homeland Security statement to USA TODAY said, adding that the agency had reversed a Biden-era policy that allowed undocumented immigrants to fly around the country without identification, but did not specify the policy.
“Under President Trump, TSA and DHS will no longer tolerate this,” the DHS statement said. “This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens who are in our country illegally are no longer able to board a plane unless they voluntarily leave.”
The agency did not respond to emailed questions.
As former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in December:, The Times reported that TSA is providing ICE with a list of passengers who have been ordered deported. USA TODAY also reported that federal contractors are building a $30 million system to track suspected gang members and illegal immigrants and are purchasing access to a system that tracks passengers on nearly all U.S.-based flights.
Former commissioner says TSA’s immigration enforcement is not ‘optimal’
Former TSA Director and FBI Deputy Director John Pistol said airports are rarely ICE’s primary enforcement locations.
“Of course, TSA exists for aviation security, not immigration control,” he said. “ICE exists for immigration control, not aviation security. So could there be overlap in roles? Yes. Is that optimal? I don’t think so.”
Bill Ong Hing, professor of law and immigration studies and founding director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic at the University of San Francisco, said to board a domestic flight you need a boarding pass and a valid ID, which could be an unexpired passport from your country of origin.
You will also need to pass through a TSA check to ensure it is safe to travel. Immigration enforcement at airports has occurred before, but they are random and infrequent, Hinn said.
TSA did not respond to an emailed request for comment. An ICE spokesperson said the incident occurred before ICE agents were dispatched to the airport during a partial government shutdown to ramp up TSA efforts.
Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, sent DHS an investigation into data sharing between government agencies. In a letter dated March 30, Padilla and Schiff called the practice “alarming” and asked for more information, including TSA’s policy on contacting ICE to detain travelers.
Data Privacy Warnings, Expanding Surveillance
Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based digital rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the second Trump administration tore down guardrails between federal agencies. She cited Elon Musk’s Office of Government Efficiency collecting large amounts of data from Americans early in the second Trump administration.
“You are collecting information for a purpose and you are letting the public know that you are collecting information for that purpose,” Hussein said. “It shouldn’t be used for any other purpose. Everything is out the window now.”
The administration is using IRS tax data to identify people in the country it seeks to detain and deport. Undocumented immigrants are encouraged to pay taxes using their Individual Taxpayer Identification Number as a route to future citizenship. In February, a Massachusetts federal court order temporarily blocked the government from using tax data for immigration enforcement.
Hinn, the law professor, said the mother and daughter’s deportation shows the Trump administration is thinking more broadly about finding deportees and illegal aliens.
“This is just another chapter in their efforts to continue to scare people, and they have been very successful in instilling fear in civil society and non-civil society,” he said. “That’s another one. Now they’re not just in schools and neighborhoods, they’re in airports.”
Hinn said he doesn’t know how detailed ICE’s information is at this point.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Contact us via email (emcuevas1@usatoday.com) or Signal (emcuevas.01).
