ICE Arrests Surge at Airports, Opening New Front in Deportation Drive

The Trump administration has begun arresting international residents with expired US visas as they journey via airports, together with spouses of Americans, in response to paperwork obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration attorneys — a tactic that opens up an unlimited new pool of individuals for deportation.

Immigration brokers in plain garments have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in current weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, whereas others have occurred as indignant fellow passengers filmed the encounters.

The current arrests look like an growth of an association between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Times reported in December that ICE officers had been arresting individuals with deportation orders at airports with the assistance of data offered by airways to the TSA

Now, via a assessment of Homeland Security Department paperwork and interviews with attorneys for greater than 25 individuals from greater than a dozen international locations just lately detained at airports, The Times has discovered that this system apparently now consists of individuals with expired visas — a a lot bigger group.

Hundreds of 1000’s of immigrants and guests overstay visas annually. Many with expired visas occupy a authorized grey space, as they’re awaiting visa extensions or inexperienced playing cards and have been issued work permits. Such people weren’t prioritized for deportation in the previous until they’d dedicated crimes, they usually had been not often detained whereas ready for visa extensions or inexperienced playing cards. But that has modified underneath President Trump, whose administration has undertaken a marketing campaign of mass deportation and views all visa overstays as unlawful.

“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,” a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department stated in a press release. The company didn’t verify the growth of this system.

The division, which oversees ICE, has not disclosed how many individuals have been detained at airports as overstays underneath the brand new initiative. The arrests come throughout a interval in which the White House has pushed ICE for extra arrests throughout the nation, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has pledged to show “up the heat on the streets.” To that finish, the administration has set a goal of two,000 immigration arrests a day, roughly double the tempo from earlier this 12 months.

Interviews with greater than a dozen immigration attorneys, advocacy organizations and an airline worker reveal a broad cross-section of targets: an engineer awaiting a work-visa extension, a number of newlyweds married to US residents, and a former au pair.

Footage of encounters between vacationers and ICE officers have flooded social media. In one extensively circulated video, Chantal Morales Rojas, a 27-year-old from Ecuador, was detained by plainclothes officers as she boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from Denver to Oakland, Calif., on July 20. She had been spending the weekend with the household for whom she had labored as an au pair, in response to the household.

When Ms. Morales Rojas scanned her boarding cross, an alarm sounded and the gate agent requested her to attend. Moments later, two plainclothes brokers intercepted her in the jetway.

“They said they were going to be respectful, that they would be polite,” Alicia Dantzker, a buddy of the household, who was on the identical flight and filmed a part of the encounter, instructed The Times in an interview. The video captures the lads encircling Ms. Morales Rojas, after which ushering her via a aspect door and down steps to the tarmac as Ms. Dantzker screams for assist.

Also amongst these detained was a Ugandan girl in a wheelchair who has sickle cell anemia and an energetic asylum utility, in response to her lawyer.

In one other case, ICE tried to arrest an Australian citizen who had overstayed his visa at the Las Vegas airport, in response to the Department of Homeland Security. The scene was recorded by a bystander whose video of the encounter drew vast consideration. Officers let him go “to de-escalate the situation and for officer safety,” however ICE ended up taking him into custody a day later when he tried to board a flight in Los Angeles, the division stated in a press release.

“In 38 years practicing immigration law, I had never seen this,” stated Charles Kuck, who is predicated in Atlanta and is representing an Indian engineer who was detained whereas awaiting a work-permit extension. “And I know it’s happening to lots of people.”

Shannon Shepherd, an immigration lawyer who’s vice chair for the Chicago chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, stated she and different attorneys had been reviewing longstanding recommendation about home air journey.

“Before, I was saying, ‘As long as you have an ID, you can travel domestically,’” Ms. Shepherd stated. “Now I am turning around and saying, ‘If you are in the process of changing status, avoid any travel.’”

The unique collaboration between TSA and ICE started in May 2025, when the airport safety company began sharing info with the immigration company for enforcement functions, in response to a doc obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the federal government transparency group American Oversight and shared with The Times.

ICE shared names of people with deportation orders with the airport company, which might run them via their databases and report any hits to ICE for potential arrest. It was a notable shift from previous practices, when the federal authorities prevented involving the TSA in immigration enforcement for concern of disrupting home journey.

Now, “the net they are casting for people who want to detain is far wider,” stated Ghassan Shamieh, an immigration lawyer in San Francisco.

“It’s not people with criminal records” being focused, Mr. Shamieh stated. “You are talking about people with legitimate pending applications.”

Mr. Shamieh has 4 purchasers who had been detained at airports in the final 10 days, together with two ladies who just lately married Americans and are in the method of acquiring everlasting residency via their spouses. One of the husbands was together with his spouse when she was taken into custody after they landed in Burbank, Calif.

On Tuesday morning, an immigration decide granted her launch on a $35,000 bond. But DHS attorneys reserved the best to attraction inside 30 days, and she or he is more likely to stay detained till they determine.

Ms. Morales Rojas, the au pair, entered the United States lawfully in January 2023 as a J-1 trade customer, a authorized standing that allowed her to work for 2 years, in response to her lawyer. Her visa expired Jan. 4, 2025, in response to DHS Before the trade program ended, Ms. Morales Rojas filed an utility with immigration authorities to stay in the nation, stated the lawyer, Laura Lichter.

“During the last three and a half years, Morales Rojas lived openly in the United States with the government’s knowledge of her pending case, passed repeated background checks, and received work authorization from DHS while waiting for her application to be reviewed,” Ms. Lichter stated. “The process she’s pursuing is completely legal.”

But homeland safety officers stated in a press release that “in violation of our nation’s laws, she overstayed her visa.” On Tuesday afternoon, a decide granted her launch on a $3,000 bond, and she or he is more likely to depart detention by Wednesday.

Ms. Lichter has filed swimsuit difficult the federal government’s choice to arrest and detain Ms. Morales Rojas and not using a correct arrest warrant and with out an individualized dedication that detention was vital.

Lauren and Scott Cahr, her former employers, stated they’d employed Ms. Morales Rojas when their first little one, Silas, was 6 months outdated. The Cahrs stated in an interview that they’d flown Ms. Morales Rojas to Denver throughout an Ultimate Frisbee match that they attended, and she or he had helped look after Silas and his little brother.

The household shaped a deep bond, and the Cahrs created a customized photograph ebook titled “The Adventures of Chanty and Gordo,” the nicknames Ms. Morales Rojas and their names are called each other, as a parting gift.

“She is an amazing young woman who we were so lucky to have in our lives,” Ms. Cahr stated. “We have tried to maintain a consistent relationship with her.”

Ms. Cahr has visited Ms. Morales Rojas in detention, while members of the Cahrs’ Ultimate Frisbee community have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover legal costs.