Transportation and Security Administration staff reportedly alerted immigration authorities to a Guatemalan mother and her 9-year-old daughter before agents descended on them inside San Francisco’s airport.
New details about the woman’s harrowing arrest — which went viral after travelers surrounded the officers and posted footage on social media — raises critical questions about TSA’s relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including how checkpoint agents are sharing information about travelers they suspect are living in the country illegally.
San Francisco officials who oppose ICE’s presence in the city and its airport called Sunday’s arrest an “isolated incident,” which took place hours before President Donald Trump deployed ICE agents into more than a dozen major transit hubs across the country.
San Francisco International Airport was not on that list, and officials stressed the arrest was unrelated to Trump’s surge.
But government documents obtained by The New York Times reportedly show that the family was preparing to board a flight to Miami when they were arrested, moments after TSA agents flagged their names on a passenger list to ICE.
Under the Trump administration, TSA is providing ICE with the names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by an immigration court judge, allowing officers to quickly identify and arrest people in airport terminals.
At 9:30 p.m., two agents found Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter Wendy Godinez-Jimenez in San Francisco’s terminal concourse, after TSA gave them a heads up about the Miami flight, according to The New York Times.
Lopez-Jimenez was carrying two Guatemalan passports, which allegedly matched names on a removal order from 2019.
After the officers told her to follow them, she “attempted to flee and resisted law enforcement officers,” according to a spokesperson for Homeland Security.
Videos from the scene show the officers holding her down while she cries out for help. The two men, who are both wearing black hooded sweatshirts, did not respond to demands from bystanders to see their badges.
In a video obtained by The Independent, a woman can be heard asking other bystanders to call 911 while she repeatedly asks the officers for their badges and names.
Lopez-Jimenez, in tears, is on her knees while the officers struggle to place her in handcuffs.
The officers tell the woman and others around her to “step back” as they pull Lopez-Jimenez from the ground. Moments later, the agents are seen whisking her away in a wheelchair with her daughter beside her.
San Francisco Police Department officers can also be seen forming a barrier between the family and bystanders.
At one point, the agents can be seen pulling her arms behind her and dragging her to a wheelchair while she is lying on a bench, surrounded by bystanders telling them to leave her alone.
“This is un-American,” one person can be heard saying.
They were booked into a holding room at the airport that night, moved to Texas the following day, and flown to Guatemala the next morning.
Asked by The Independent to confirm the chain of events and whether TSA is regularly sharing travel information with ICE, the agency instead reshared an initial statement about the incident from a Homeland Security spokesperson.
That statement does not mention TSA’s involvement. The five-sentence message only states that Lopez-Jimenez tried to flee and ICE officers then arrested the family inside the airport over an outstanding removal order.
The incident has drawn intense scrutiny across social media and from state and local officials, though San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel both said they believe the arrest is an “isolated incident” unrelated to ICE’s presence in other airports.
“What are the databases being shared here from TSA with immigration authorities?” asked California Democratic Rep. John Garamendi, who said Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“What’s happening? What is going on in our country?” he posted in a video on social media. “The Trump administration is creating this chaos.”
Lurie said city officials do not believe there is “broader federal immigration enforcement at SFO,” and that SFPD officers only remained at the scene “to maintain public safety and were not involved in the incident.”
“Under our city’s longstanding policies, local law enforcement does not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement,” he said in a statement. “Those policies keep us safe and will not change as long as I’m mayor.”
SFO also was “not involved in or notified in advance of this incident,” according to Yakel.
“Airport operations continued without disruption, and there was no impact to flights or passenger processing,” he said in a statement.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, said during a press conference Monday that “we don't need ICE or Border Patrol or any of these other thugs in our city and our airport.”
“They’re not welcome here, and they need to stay the hell out,” he added.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Kevin Mullin, both of whom represent San Francisco in Congress, issued a joint statement rebuking the “aggressive” arrest as “another heartbreaking example of how Trump’s inhumane immigration enforcement is terrorizing communities across America.”
“The hardworking TSA staff at SFO are contract employees, and we are relieved to hear this incident is not related to Trump’s threat to send ICE agents into airports to perform sensitive airport security for which they are not trained,” they said.
“Trump and Republicans are failing to keep communities safe and posing risks to families across America,” the lawmakers added.
The arrest also demonstrates how ICE relies on charter and commercial flights through major transportation corridors to support the Trump administration’s vast deportation efforts. ICE deportations can include both “escorted and unescorted removals,” including commercial flights with ICE escorts.
SFO is among more than a dozen U.S. airports that use private contractors for security screening at checkpoints to enter terminals rather than federal TSA employees.
Because those are privately funded airport staff, SFO’s employees continue to be paid during the partial government shutdown — which has left federal TSA workers without paychecks for nearly a month as travelers endure hours-long wait times getting through security.
Armed ICE officers wearing military-style vests moved into 14 major airports on Monday, including airports in New York City, Houston and Atlanta, to supplement essential TSA workers who are unpaid during a congressional deadlock over future funding for the DHS, which oversees TSA as well as ICE and other immigration agencies.
But ICE officers — who are still being paid during the shutdown after the agency saw a multi-billion dollars injection of taxpayer cash last year — were seen largely standing around and patrolling airport terminals.
Travelers are still facing long security lines despite the expected relief from federal agents, making it unclear what impact, if any, the deployment of armed officers into American airports will have on wait times.
Dr. Casey Means’ surgeon general nomination stalled as GOP senators cast doubt
Iran-US war live: Trump deploys ground troops after peace plan dismissed by Tehran
Trump administration live updates today as DHS shutdown continues; TSA remains unpaid
Former Google executive Matt Brittin ‘honoured’ to become BBC director-general
Emily Gregory: The ‘FIT4MOM’ first-timer who flipped seat in Trump’s backyard
Trump’s kept classified doc and showed off top-secret map, ‘damning’ DOJ memo reveals
