ICE Arrests at Airports: What Immigrants Should Know Before Traveling

[Photo credit: Megan Varner / Getty Images]

Updated 11-02-2026: It is important for all immigrants to understand that ICE continues to arrest people at airports. These include working taxpayers with no criminal history, people with pending asylum applications, and people who thought they had lawful status. A few recent examples:

• Jazmin Nicolini-Alvarez, originally from Argentina, was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last week as she was about to fly to Florida for a potential work promotion. According to her husband, she has no criminal history and had flown without issue less than a year ago. She remains in ICE detention in Tacoma, Washington.
• Southern Connecticut State University student Deng Dhieu Kuach Deng, a native of South Sudan, was arrested at Tweed-New Haven Airport in Connecticut in September. He is a basketball recruit with a pending asylum application and valid work authorization, according to his attorney. He has since been released.
• Clara Tan, a 33-year-old trans woman originally from Singapore with a pending asylum application and a work permit, was tackled and handcuffed by ICE agents at the Rochester Airport in October upon her return from a trip to California. The agents arrested her and placed her for four hours in a male detention facility. She was not released until two female guards “[made] sure that [I] don’t have a penis,” Tan explained. (She had gender-affirming surgery in 2024.) Tan was released with an ankle monitor and an order to appear in immigration court in December.

If you have any doubts whatsoever about your immigration status, please avoid airports. If you would like a consultation about whether it is safe for you to travel, please contact us.

Earlier this year, we shared with our readers that ICE officers were patrolling airports and that TSA agents were assisting them in identifying immigrants with removal orders. This activity has not abated, and recently, ICE has also begun detaining people who do not have removal orders.

We want to offer an important reminder: if you do not have an approved immigration status, and especially if you have an active removal order, it is in your best interest to avoid airports at this time, including for domestic travel.

ICE Arrests at Airports Now Include People Without Removal Orders

ICE is no longer limiting its detentions to only people who have been ordered deported. On July 14, ICE arrested a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, Lorenzo Thompson, at the Nashville airport while he was at work.

An ICE spokesperson cited an overstayed visa as the reason for Mr. Thompson’s detention, even though he held a valid work permit and has a pending asylum case.

The story is the same for many immigrants detained while traveling through airports across the United States, despite having a pending application for immigration status.

An Ecuadorian au pair was ambushed at her gate and escorted away by agents in Denver; a Russian high-school student was arrested in Houston; a Colombian DACA recipient was detained in Boston – to name just a few recent examples. Each of these individuals was law-abiding, with no criminal history, and had a valid work permit and/or an application for immigration status pending.

Pending Applications and Work Permits May Not Prevent an ICE Arrest

In defense of these detentions, ICE spokespersons have reiterated the same blanket reasoning: that work permits, pending asylum cases, DACA status, and Temporary Protected Status do not confer legal status in the U.S., and therefore don’t prevent ICE from arresting and deporting so-called “illegal” immigrants.

How TSA and Airlines Share Traveler Information With ICE

ICE is not working alone in its deportation mission. A recent Reuters report uncovered that TSA has shared over 31,000 traveler records with ICE, resulting in at least 800 arrests.

Airlines, too, are complicit in the sharing of traveler information. One Southwest spokesperson interviewed after the arrest in Denver noted that the airline will comply “with applicable state and federal law when asked to share information about customers.”

What Immigrants Should Know Before Traveling by Air

Recent events have underscored that ICE will take any action they want to meet the deportation quotas required by the current administration. This includes detentions of people traveling domestically through our local airports – Dulles (IAD), National (DCA), and Baltimore (BWI) – and around the country.

As such, we urge those with pending immigration status to avoid air travel at this time.

If you have any travel questions or are detained while traveling, please contact our office. Benach Pitney Reilly will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates.