The Trump administration has directed US airport security officials to routinely share passenger names with immigration authorities, a move that officials say is aimed at identifying people subject to deportation, according to reporting by The New York Times and other outlets.
Since March, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been sending lists of travelers several times a week to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both agencies housed within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ICE cross-checks the names against its own databases to flag individuals it believes are deportable, the Times reported.
A DHS spokesperson told CNBC that the arrangement is long-standing, calling it "nothing new," adding that in February, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy" that allowed undocumented migrants "to jet around our country."
The spokesperson added: "Under President (Donald) Trump, TSA and DHS will no longer tolerate this. This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport."
While DHS has not disclosed how many arrests have resulted, the New York Times linked the program to several cases, including the Nov. 20 arrest of Babson College freshman Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, at Boston's Logan Airport, just before she was set to fly home for a surprise Thanksgiving visit to her family in Texas.
Lopez Belloza, who was deported to Honduras, had lived in the US since age 7 and was reportedly unaware that she was subject to removal. Her deportation violated a court order to keep her in the United States.
Lopez Belloza is one of the group known as dreamers, meaning undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children and have lived in the US for most of their lives, many of them attending school or working, and also starting families. For years lawmakers have sought to give them a path to legal citizenship, but have been blocked by opponents of such measures, largely Republican officials.
Weeks after Lopez Belloza, Marta Brizeyda Renderos Leiva, an immigrant from El Salvador, was arrested at Salt Lake City International Airport.
The airport data-sharing effort follows other attempts by the Trump administration to tap federal databases to help it take a more aggressive stance on immigration enforcement.
In April, DHS reached an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to access tax data for undocumented immigrants, but a federal court blocked the plan in November, CNN reported.
On the campaign trail last year before winning a return ticket to the White House, Trump promised to target "the worst of the worst"-criminals, gang members, and terrorists-for deportation.
Since taking office this January, immigration raids sweeping up law-abiding longtime US residents, many with families and jobs, have drawn widespread opposition.
