The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is reportedly sharing air travelers’ data with ICE for immigration enforcement purposes — an alarming continuation of the Trump administration’s pattern of using sensitive data to expand its immigration agenda. TSA is reportedly sharing at least passengers’ names and dates of birth with ICE.
We sued the Trump administration this week for more information about the data-sharing agreement. Records we’re seeking could provide important information about what details TSA is sharing and how the arrangement burdens TSA employees, who are already stretched thin after last year’s staffing shortages, record passenger volumes, and plane crashes that increased public concern about air travel safety. The agreement has already resulted in the wrongful arrest and deportation of a Boston-area college student who was trying to travel home to Texas.
We’ve seen this behavior at other agencies. Last year, a federal judge struck down a similar data-sharing arrangement between ICE and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), after we obtained the agreement that explained the arrangement.
“This has become a pattern in the Trump administration: take sensitive personal data that the public entrusts to one agency and quietly redeploy it for immigration enforcement, without their knowledge or consent,” said our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “The public has a right to know whether the federal agency charged with keeping air travel safe is quietly repurposing passenger information to fuel the Trump administration’s inhumane and dangerous immigration agenda.”
DOGE may have accessed, shared, and compromised sensitive Social Security data
DOGE staff may have used Social Security Administration (SSA) data — some of the most sensitive info that Americans entrust the government with — to help an advocacy group seeking to overturn election results in certain states, recent reporting revealed.
We’ve been sounding the alarm about DOGE’s unauthorized access to Americans’ private information. We’ve filed multiple lawsuits seeking records about DOGE’s access to agency-held data and efforts to verify the citizenship of individuals on voter rolls. We’re suing the SSA and the Treasury for records related to DOGE’s efforts to access their information. We’re also suing for records about the Trump administration’s national citizenship-checking database, which includes sensitive information from several agencies including the SSA.
The public deserves answers about DOGE’s access to, and potential mishandling of, its sensitive information.
Records from Trump’s first term are eligible for release. Here’s why that matters.
Records from Trump’s first term became eligible for public release on Tuesday, five years after Trump first left the White House. We filed a sweeping set of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records that could provide additional details on Trump’s first term, and context for how the administration is operating today.
The requests include communications from senior leaders in Trump’s first term like Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner, Brooke Rollins, and Ivanka Trump — many of whom also have senior roles in his current administration. We’re also seeking records that could shed light on actions from Trump’s first term that laid the groundwork for his current administration: the development of the family separation policy at the southern border, interactions with foreign governments, and efforts to politicize the Department of Justice to serve the president’s personal and political interests.
We’re also seeking text messages and other communications between Trump and individuals outside the government. The records could illuminate potential conflicts of interest, improper influence, and the extent to which official government business was conducted outside formal channels.
Learn more about what records are covered under the Presidential Records Act, how the legal process works to release those records, and what we’re doing to demand transparency about the first Trump administration’s actions.
American Oversight in the news
Other stories we’re following
Trump’s first year could have lasting economic consequences (New York Times)
Trump says individuals will soon be prosecuted for 2020 election (Politico)
Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says (Associated Press)
Lindsey Halligan departs Justice Department hours after Trump-appointed federal judge calls her leadership a ‘charade’ (CNN)
