ICE Airport Arrests Target Visa Overstays, Lawyers Warn

The American Immigration Lawyers Association warned its members on July 27, 2026, that federal immigration agents are detaining noncitizens during domestic air travel across nine U.S. states, including people with pending green-card applications, valid work authorization, and no criminal history.

Attorneys Report a Multi-State Detention Pattern

The AILA practice alert, published one day before the story broke nationally, identified member-reported airport detentions in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia. The association's alert does not represent a government count, it aggregates reports from immigration lawyers whose clients were caught up in the arrests.

AILA specified that some of those detained had timely filed adjustment-of-status or asylum applications, a step that can place a person in a period of authorized stay under U.S. law, even after the original visa date has passed. Others held Employment Authorization Documents or advance parole travel permits at the time of arrest. None of those individuals are described as having criminal records.

Federal policy treats authorized stay and maintained status differently. Under the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 7, Part B, Chapter 4, a pending benefit application can preserve an applicant's authorized presence, but that protection does not automatically equal maintained nonimmigrant status. The legal standing of each detained individual depends entirely on their specific case, filing history, and the category under which they applied.

Bay Area Numbers: Ten Residents Arrested in Under a Month

California groups provided the clearest local count available. Rapid-response networks tracked more than a dozen airport-related detentions in the Bay Area from June 27 onward, according to a July 28 report. The Santa Clara County Rapid Response Network recorded ten arrests of county residents at two airports since July 1: six at San Francisco International Airport and four at San José Mineta International Airport.

Those detentions were not at border crossings or international arrivals, each person was either departing on, or arriving from, a domestic route.

Jazmin Preciado, an attorney with Centro Legal de la Raza, told the outlet that noncitizens with any unresolved immigration matter should think carefully before booking domestic flights. Milli Atkinson, director of the San Francisco Bar Association's Immigrant Legal Defense Program, raised a more pointed concern: whether officials are accessing flight reservation data to identify travelers with expired visa status before they ever reach the gate.

Secure Flight Data and Immigration Enforcement

DHS information-sharing rules give that concern a documented basis. The Transportation Security Administration collects passenger data from airlines through its Secure Flight program, a fact confirmed in the TSA's published Privacy Impact Assessment. Airlines submit passenger names, dates of birth, and other details to TSA before every flight, domestic and international.

The data-sharing pipeline is more than a theoretical concern. Internal ICE data reviewed by Reuters in April 2026 showed that TSA supplied ICE with records on more than 31,000 travelers for possible immigration enforcement between the start of the Trump administration and February 2026, a data transfer that produced more than 800 arrests. The Secure Flight program was established in 2007 as a counter-terrorism tool, it was not originally designed to identify immigration offenders.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, TSA's acting director, told a congressional hearing in January 2026 that information sharing between DHS components is not a new practice and supports the department's immigration law enforcement responsibilities, according to reporting on that hearing. That statement stops short of confirming that TSA flight data is being used specifically to flag visa overstays for ICE targeting, but it confirms the data pipeline exists inside DHS.

No official DHS or ICE press release has confirmed a formal expansion of the airport arrest program to visa overstays. Multiple people with lapsed visa dates have been detained at domestic airports across the country in recent weeks, and attorneys representing those people said airports had become an enforcement venue at this scale without prior public notice.

Three Arrests: Denver, SFO, and Nashville

Cases at three airports over a ten-day span illustrate the geographic reach. Iryna Gorb, a 38-year-old Ukrainian national who had lived in San Francisco for 16 years, was arrested by plainclothes ICE agents at SFO on July 22 as she returned from a domestic trip to Portland, Oregon. DHS said she entered the U.S. in July 2010 on a visa that expired May 31, 2011. A video of the arrest, posted to social media by a Richmond city councilmember who witnessed it, spread widely, it showed Gorb on the floor saying "you're choking me" as agents in plainclothes detained her.

Two days earlier, on July 20, agents in plainclothes arrested Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas, a 27-year-old Ecuadorian woman and Oakland resident, on the jetway of a Southwest Airlines departure at Denver International Airport. DHS said she entered the U.S. on October 20, 2024, on a visa that permitted her stay through January 4, 2025. Her attorney, Laura Lichter, disputed that account, saying Morales Rojas arrived on a J-1 exchange visitor visa in early 2023, followed the rules of her program, and timely filed an application that allowed her to remain while her case was pending. Attorneys for Morales Rojas subsequently filed a habeas petition seeking her release.

The most widely covered case involved Lorenzo Thompson, a Jamaican citizen employed as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, detained by ICE at Nashville International Airport on July 14 after returning from a work trip. DHS confirmed Thompson entered the United States on April 17, 2021, at the Miami port of entry, with permission to stay for six months, his visa expired October 16, 2021. His union, TWU Local 556, confirmed the arrest publicly, and supporters said Thompson held a valid work permit and a pending asylum case at the time of his detention, claims DHS did not address in its public statement. Thompson remains in ICE custody at a correctional facility in Mississippi, pending immigration proceedings.

What the Overstay Data Shows

The enforcement activity is directed at a population the government has documented at scale in its own records. The CBP Fiscal Year 2024 Entry/Exit Overstay Report shows that hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant visitors remain in the United States beyond their authorized admission period each year. Most entered lawfully on student, tourist, or work visas and did not depart when their authorized period ended.

Under CBP's I-94 rules, a traveler who remains beyond the period recorded on their arrival record may have their original visa automatically voided under Section 222(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a consequence that is separate from any enforcement action and can occur even while an immigration case is active in the courts.

DHS has not released an airport-specific arrest total for this enforcement period, and no official press release found in public records confirms a structured expansion of airport arrests beyond individuals with final removal orders.

The Practical Warning for Travelers

Attorneys are advising case-specific legal review before any domestic flight. Anyone with a lapsed visa date, a pending immigration application, or any prior enforcement contact should consult an attorney before booking, regardless of whether they hold current employment authorization or an advance parole document.

The AILA alert does not say domestic air travel is prohibited for people in pending cases. It says the risk spans nine states confirmed by member reports, that people with valid work permits have been caught up in it, and that individual legal advice is the only reliable guide to individual risk.

Travelers can check their authorized admission record through the CBP I-94 online portal, which may reveal whether a discrepancy exists between their understanding of their status and what federal systems show.