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SAN FRANCISCO — New questions are emerging about how federal agencies share and use passenger data following the Sunday arrest of a Guatemalan mother and her child at San Francisco International Airport.
The arrest and deportation, carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is drawing scrutiny after reports the Transportation Security Administration flagged the traveler – prompting debate over how information is shared within the Department of Homeland Security.
Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter were living in Contra Costa County, California, and traveling out of SFO before getting detained by federal agents Sunday night. DHS officials said Monday that Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter had received final deportation orders from 2019 and resisted arrest on Sunday.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, confirmed that TSA officials tipped off ICE about the woman’s illegal immigration status.
Experts say that kind of data-sharing is not new.
John Cohen, a former DHS Acting Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said that information-sharing between TSA, ICE and Customs and Border Protection has long been common practice over the last two decades.
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“The outcome of post-9/11 is an extensive amount of information sharing between the airlines, CBP, TSA, and other parts of the federal system who use that information for not just securing the aviation networks or system, but also identifying dangerous people who are flying in the aviation system, domestically,” he said.
Cohen, who has more than three decades of experience in law enforcement, counter-intelligence, and homeland security, said previous administrations did not use these tools to target individuals solely for immigration enforcement.
“We did not leverage TSA to identify people who were purely on the radar screen for civil immigration enforcement purposes,” he said, adding that the focus was on national security and public safety threats.
The issue has already drawn scrutiny from some leaders on Capitol Hill.
During a January oversight hearing, Democratic lawmakers questioned TSA officials about whether passenger information is being used to assist immigration enforcement.
TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified that TSA does share its data with ICE as it operates under DHS.
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When pressed further, McNeill clarified that TSA does not directly send passenger information to ICE, but does assist in checking that information against immigration enforcement databases.
“We are supporting the mission of our colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security that includes enforcement of immigration laws,” she said.
Concerns over shifting use of federal systems
Some lawmakers argue that kind of coordination blurs lines that were once more clearly defined.
“It used to be common practice, and in many cases, regulations, that these databases were to be separate,” said Garamendi.
Cohen said the shift reflects broader policy priorities that could come with tradeoffs.
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“This administration said they were going to dramatically expand civil immigration enforcement,” he said. “You don’t have unlimited resources. If you’re focusing on people who don’t represent a threat, then you’re not using those resources to focus on people who are.”
The debate extends beyond DHS.
There are growing legal challenges over how government data is shared across agencies, including a Massachusetts lawsuit involving the Internal Revenue Service, raising broader questions about how personal information may be used in immigration enforcement cases.
In February, a federal judge ordered that the IRS can not use taxpayer information provided by the IRS.
Bill Hing – founder of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic University of San Francisco Law – said the incident highlights broader systemic issues surrounding gaps in federal immigration enforcement and legal pathways to citizenship.
“I’m sure some people are thinking, ‘well, hey, this is the way the system should work,'” he said. “My concern is that now the administration has come upon a new way of arresting people who are deportable… people are gonna be discouraged from flying.”
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