"In FY 2023, over 510,000 people overstayed their visas. These are people who entered legally by air or sea and then remained unlawfully.

DHS publishes annual Entry/Exit Overstay Reports to Congress tracking this population, and overstays are estimated to constitute approximately 40 percent of the total illegal alien population residing in the United States.

TSA sends ICE lists of people flying through U.S. airports several times per week, including names and photos, which ICE checks against its own records and, if a target is identified, dispatches officers to make an arrest.

This is something neither airlines nor TSA are equipped or authorized to do. Airlines are private carriers with no immigration enforcement authority and no access to ICE databases.

TSA’s statutory mandate is aviation security, screening for weapons and threats to flight safety, not immigration enforcement. TSA can share passenger data with ICE but cannot itself act on immigration violations.

Without ICE present, a person flagged in ICE databases boards the plane unimpeded. The presence of ICE officers at airports closes that gap by placing the agency with both the database access and the enforcement authority in the same location as the traveler."


Much more at link:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/ice-airports-this-is-what-democrats-voted/