California’s senators are seeking more information about how the Transportation Security Administration shares data with the immigration authorities after a woman and her daughter were publicly apprehended in San Francisco’s airport while heading to a flight last week.
The Transportation Security Administration began sharing passenger information with immigration officials a year ago, highlighting fliers who were on a list of people to be deported.
But the program had received little attention. Now, after video clips went viral, showing an undocumented Guatemalan mother and her child being detained at San Francisco International Airport last week, Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both Democrats, are asking the Trump administration to disclose more details.
On Monday, the senators sent a host of questions to the heads of T.S.A., Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses both agencies. They wanted to know how the information sharing works, how many people have been detained or deported under the program and which airports have been targeted.
The New York Times reported on the existence of the program in December. Homeland security officials described it as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to find and deport immigrants who were in the country illegally.
But in contrast to the highly visible immigration enforcement efforts on the streets of some cities, the cooperation between T.S.A. and ICE had proceeded quietly.
Then, a week ago, T.S.A. agents tipped off ICE that Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her young daughter, who the agency said were subject to a final deportation order, would be boarding a flight in San Francisco. A crowd gathered as agents detained the mother in Terminal 3, with some recording the incident on their phones while shouting, “Leave her alone!”
In their letter, the senators called the news of the collaboration between T.S.A. and ICE to detain Ms. Lopez-Jimenez “alarming,” particularly because her criminal record was limited to crossing the border into the United States illegally. They pointed out that T.S.A. usually concerns itself with people on terrorist watch lists or who have major convictions against them.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said Ms. Lopez-Jimenez had “no legal right to remain in our country.”
“There is nothing ‘alarming’ about enforcing federal law,” she added.
Ruby Robles Perez, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schiff, said that as members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the senators have a role overseeing the administration’s immigration policies.
“When constituents and communities in California are targeted by the administration’s actions, both senators will use their voice, their votes and their oversight authorities to respond,” she said.
Government documents obtained by The Times stated that Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, 9, were preparing to fly to Miami using their Guatemalan passports.
Two days before the flight, according to the documents, T.S.A. tipped off ICE that the pair would be flying, and agents were waiting for them. They had crossed the border into the United States illegally in 2018, and Ms. Lopez-Jimenez had been ordered deported the following year.
After the detention, the pair was flown to Texas and then back to Guatemala. Staffers in the office of John Garamendi, the congressman who represents the East Bay district in which the pair lived, said on Monday that Ms. Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter are safe with their extended family in Guatemala.
The detention has prompted worry among other undocumented immigrants who wish to travel, said Amanda Maya, an immigration lawyer with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
She said one client from El Salvador wanted to take his 6-year-old son to Disneyland but had given up on the idea. Ms. Maya said the man had a pending asylum application, no criminal history and permission to work in the country but feared that even driving to Anaheim could be dangerous.
“This is a scare tactic that is meant to create fear in the community,” she said.
The program is expected to continue. ICE has said most of T.S.A.’s tips have led to arrests, and more tips roll in every week.
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
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