- The US government has made it mandatory for immigrants without passports to undergo facial recognition technology to board domestic flights.
- Immigrants without proper photo identification must use facial recognition technology to verify their identity against Department of Homeland Security records, according to the TSA.
- TSA officials did not say when the change was implemented, but said the change was recent and not caused by any specific security threat.
The U.S. government this week began requiring immigrants without passports to submit facial recognition technology to board domestic flights in Texas, a change that has caused confusion among immigration and advocacy groups.
It’s unclear exactly when the change went into effect, but several immigrants who boarded a flight departing from South Texas on Tuesday told advocacy groups that they thought they had been turned away. Ta. Some of the migrants were using the government’s online booking system to pursue their immigration cases. Advocates were also concerned about immigrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and are then searched by Border Patrol and released for immigration review.
The Transportation Security Administration told The Associated Press on Thursday that immigrants who want to board a plane without proper photo identification must follow facial recognition technology to verify their identity using Department of Homeland Security records. He said there is.
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“If TSA is unable to match their identity to DHS records, they will also be denied entry to a secure area of the airport and denied boarding,” the agency said.
The Transportation Security Administration’s new facial recognition technology can be seen at the security checkpoint at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The US government has begun requiring immigrants without passports to use facial recognition technology to board domestic flights. (AP Photo/Julia Nickinson, File)
Officials did not say when TSA made the change, only that it was recent and not in response to a specific security threat.
It’s unclear how many migrants will be affected. Some have foreign passports.
Immigrants and tense communities on the U.S.-Mexico border often send people to other cities where they have friends and family or where Border Patrol orders them to go to proceed with immigration applications. We are increasingly relying on airlines to transport people.
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Organizations that work with migrants said they were caught off guard by the change. The migrants feared they would lose the hundreds of dollars they had spent on non-refundable airline tickets. After a group of migrants returned to a shelter in McAllen on Tuesday after saying they had been turned away at the airport, advocates exchanged messages trying to figure out what the new TSA process would be.
“It caused a lot of suffering to people,” said the Rev. Brian Strassberger, executive director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, a Texas organization that provides humanitarian aid and advocacy for migrants.
Strassberger said that previously, immigrants could board planes if they had documents from Border Patrol.
An Ecuadorian woman traveling with her child told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she allowed officers to take photos at a TSA checkpoint, making boarding easier.
