By: Jennie Taer, Daily Caller News Foundation
The new Republican border security bill introduced Tuesday would bar migrants from using certain arrest warrants as identification at airports in order to travel via commercial airline flights.
The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported in January 2022 that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was allowing migrants to use certain administrative arrest warrants to travel. The revelation came in a letter TSA Administrator David Pekoske sent to Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden at the time, in which he disclosed that “Warrant for Arrest of Alien” and a “Warrant of Removal/Deportation” are considered acceptable forms of identification by the agency.
“If an individual presents a prohibited identification document to an officer of the Transportation Security Administration at an airport security checkpoint, the Administrator shall promptly notify the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], the Director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP], and the head of the appropriate local law enforcement agency to determine whether the individual is in violation of any term of release from the custody of any such agency,” the bill states.
The administrative warrants are issued to people ICE believes should be removed from the country.
“TSA is committed to ensuring that all travelers, regardless of immigration status, are pre-screened before they arrive to the airport, have their pre-screening status and identification verified at security checkpoints, and receive appropriate screening based on risk before entering the sterile area of the airport,” Pekoske wrote to Gooden, adding that the migrants using the documents undergo enhanced screening.
The agency relies on CBP or ICE, which issue the documents to migrants, to verify that the name given for the documents “is the person whom the person claims to be.”
“TSA’s response confirms the Biden Administration is knowingly putting our national security at risk,” Gooden told the DCNF at the time. “Unknown and unvetted immigrants shouldn’t even be in the country, much less flying without proper identification.”
Between Jan. 1, 2021 and Oct. 31, 2021, the TSA’s National Transportation Vetting Center (NTVC) processed 45,577 non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals seeking validation of their DHS documents, 44,947 of which had their documents verified through the NTVC.
TSA used the CBP One application around 60,000 times between Jan. 1, 2021 and Oct. 31, 2021, the letter added.
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