Trump Administration Expands Airport Immigration Enforcement to Target Expired Visas
The Trump administration has initiated a strategy of arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas at check-in counters and arrival gates across at least 15 airports in recent weeks, including spouses of American citizens. Documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers reveal that the enforcement actions—which have affected more than 25 individuals from over a dozen countries—represent an expansion of an existing information-sharing arrangement between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While ICE previously focused on individuals with outstanding deportation orders, the program now sweeps in travelers with expired visas, creating a vast new pool for potential deportation amid a White House push for 2,000 daily immigration arrests.
Legal Gray Areas and Shifting Guidance for Travelers
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and visitors overstay visas annually, frequently occupying legal gray areas while awaiting visa extensions or green cards with issued work permits. Historically, such individuals were not prioritized for deportation absent criminal records, but the current administration views all visa overstays as illegal. In response, immigration attorneys nationwide are revising longstanding travel guidance. Shannon Shepherd, vice chair for the Chicago chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, now advises clients undergoing status changes to avoid domestic air travel entirely, while San Francisco immigration lawyer Ghassan Shamieh noted that targets include people with legitimate pending applications rather than criminal records.
Individual Cases Highlight the Scope of Airport Operations
Among those detained under the initiative is 27-year-old Chantal Morales Rojas, an Ecuadorian national and former au pair who was taken into custody by plainclothes officers on July 20 as she boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from Denver to Oakland, California. Having entered lawfully in January 2023 on a J-1 exchange visitor visa that expired on January 4, 2025, Ms. Morales Rojas had filed an application to remain in the country and received work authorization. Other detained individuals include an Indian engineer awaiting a work-permit extension, a Ugandan woman in a wheelchair with sickle cell anemia and an active asylum application, and two women who recently married U.S. citizens.
Public Encounters and Legal Challenges
Footage of the enforcement actions has surfaced widely on social media, including a video of Ms. Morales Rojas’s detention that captured officers encircling her at the jetway and leading her down to the tarmac as a bystander screamed for help. In a separate incident at the Las Vegas airport, ICE attempted to arrest an Australian citizen who had overstayed his visa, though officers temporarily released him before taking him into custody the following day in Los Angeles. Legal challenges are underway, with Laura Lichter filing a suit challenging the detention of Ms. Morales Rojas without a proper arrest warrant or individualized necessity determination, following a judge’s ruling granting her release on a $3,000 bond.
