Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now arresting between 20 and 40 migrants a day at U.S. airports, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official cited by NBC News, marking a sharp increase from roughly 10 daily airport arrests when the tactic began in May of last year.
The expanded enforcement has drawn attention after videos showed plainclothes ICE agents detaining passengers at boarding gates, airport corridors and even aboard aircraft.
NBC News identified several recent cases, including Ecuadorian national Chantal Morales, who was arrested at Denver International Airport while boarding a flight to California, and Venezuelan asylum seeker Claudia Rodríguez Caglianone, who was detained at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport despite having a pending asylum application and Temporary Protected Status.
The initiative has expanded beyond immigrants with final deportation orders to include some travelers with expired visas, pending immigration applications, employment authorization documents or family-based immigration petitions.
The increased arrests coincide with closer coordination between the Transportation Security Administration and ICE. A May 2025 information-sharing agreement, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, allows TSA to share information about certain noncitizen travelers with ICE.
One ICE source told CBS News that airports provide "easy targets" because travelers are in secured areas and agents have advance information about their cases. The source said the strategy also helps ICE increase arrests as the White House presses the agency to reach roughly 2,000 arrests per day nationwide.
The Department of Homeland Security has not confirmed the daily arrest figures or detailed the scope of the initiative. However, it has defended the broader policy, saying the 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."
The practice has also prompted a legislative response. On Monday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced the No TSA Data for ICE Act, which would prohibit TSA from sharing passenger information with ICE for civil immigration enforcement. Tlaib said of the bill:
"TSA is complicit in ICE expanding its chaos and cruelty to target our communities in our airports and has been openly lying about it. Through an information-sharing agreement signed in 2025, TSA is readily offering up our immigrant residents to suffer at the hands of ICE agents so they can fulfill their daily arrest quota. Immigrants should be able to safely fly in this country without the fear of arrest or deportation"
