Tom Homan confirms ICE to be at airports starting Monday (politico.com)

by mikhael 93 comments 91 points
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93 comments

[−] ryandrake 55d ago
How do they justify Immigration and Customs enforcement working domestic flights and departures in general? Isn't ICE's scope supposed to be limited to what/who is coming into the country from foreign countries?

Of course, that's a rhetorical question. When you're an autocrat, you do not need to justify your actions.

[−] paulddraper 55d ago
Virtually all commercial passenger flights are to international airports.
[−] ryandrake 55d ago
At least in the large airports, the international flights come in to a separate terminal. Will ICE limit their involvement to that terminal only, and only inbound flights? Immigration and Customs have no business on the outbound side or with domestic passengers.
[−] alexfoo 55d ago
Some international flights arrive in to domestic US terminals. These are from a limited set of countries where passengers have cleared US immigration in the departure country.

Canada, Ireland and the UAE are the major three, plus Aruba, Barbados and Bermuda.

[−] smilebot 55d ago
Since they will support tsa operations, I’m going to assume they will be at the outbound security checkpoints. Both domestic and international.
[−] gsnedders 55d ago
ICE’s scope isn’t who is coming into the country — that’s CBP’s scope. ICE’s scope is supposed to be those committing immigration offences who have already entered the country (either because the CBP failed to catch them, or because they were admitted but never left).

The only difficulty justifying this is ICE’s power to stop and question people, and an airport is no different to a random street from that point of view. Do they have probable cause? What suffices as probable cause?

And once you have probable cause, you run into the problem 8 USC 1304(e) creates: someone who doesn’t have documentation proving their legal immigration status falls into one of two categories, they’re either a citizen, or they’re an immigrant violating that section.

(And this is looking at it from a simple legalistic point of view, ignoring any questions about ICE’s behaviour or powers!)

[−] general1465 55d ago

> And once you have probable cause, you run into the problem 8 USC 1304(e) creates: someone who doesn’t have documentation proving their legal immigration status falls into one of two categories, they’re either a citizen, or they’re an immigrant violating that section.

So hopefully if you are tourist from abroad, CBP will give you stamp into your passport, otherwise you have entered "illegally". They are not always stamping passports.

[−] paulddraper 55d ago
Isn’t the stamp necessary?

Under what circumstances would they not?

[−] general1465 55d ago
CBP is doing it electronically for quite some time, as they can see your date of entry in the system and they are not controlling your date of leave against passport when you are leaving USA (you won't even meet CBP at that stage), but it is all checked electronically.

Last time I got stamped. But it seems like an exception than a rule.

https://www.swlaw.com/publication/immigration-alert-cbp-elim...

I can already see myself arguing with ICE officer that CBP is not stamping passport for years.

[−] gsnedders 54d ago
A lot of countries don’t stamp passports — if you can guarantee the entry is immediately recorded in your central database, and you can reliably look up the latest entry for a given passport, a stamp doesn’t really gain much.
[−] spindleworld 55d ago
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[−] Buttons840 55d ago
ICE has a lot of funding, more than some branches of the military.

This demonstrates they see ICE as their fix all police force, and that they are willing to deploy ICE to do whatever they think needs to be done.

[−] paulddraper 55d ago
ICE is $11B.

Coast Guard is $14B.

[−] selectodude 54d ago
[flagged]
[−] tomhow 54d ago
Please don't comment like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for much better than this here...

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[−] orwin 54d ago
Is this the new "payment package", so a bit less than 19B/year, or is this added to the 11B, and ICE funding is 30B/year?
[−] vkou 55d ago
Keep in mind that the Democrats have proposed five bills to fund the TSA, and the Republicans have shot them all down.

This reichstag fire is manufactured.

[−] yodon 55d ago
For all its flaws, TSA (at least under previous administrations) did a lot of design thinking work around how to streamline flows through airports, minimize travel stress and conflict, and optimize to minimize traveler complaints while continuing to maintain security.

Bringing in shock theater optimized staff is a particularly poor fit for a scenario that will impact a disproportionately voting and bipartisan pool of citizens.

There's a reason advertising in airports is generally targeted at corporate leaders and decision makers.

[−] LightBug1 55d ago
The US tourism industry must be just lapping this up ...

"Visit the USA ... starting your holiday off wiv your papers, and a bang! Schnell !!! "

[−] tsoukase 52d ago
At the time I avoid traveling to the US and just watching eating popcorn. This summer football Mundial is going to be held and in 2028 the summer Olympics. It will the first time that a country that hosts these goes a foreigners' hostile way.
[−] decimalenough 54d ago
Welp, good thing there's absolutely no way this could go horribly wrong.
[−] iJohnDoe 54d ago
I wonder how this will impact the economy. People deciding not to travel won’t help anything. You would think this is the last thing the administration would want to do at this point.
[−] rdegges 55d ago
Straight white US citizen male here. This scares the shit out of me. I travel for work all the time, but understanding that we will now have barely trained, and in many cases completely lawless, consequence-free federal officers in direct, high stress, public areas where lots of people are constantly passing through seems like an absolute recipe for tragedy.

This will 100% make me reconsider travel and avoid airports with ICE agents. I think the writing on the wall is clear, nobody is safe.

[−] vjvjvjvjghv 55d ago
Seems ICE is basically just a slush fund to use wherever they see fit.
[−] zoklet-enjoyer 55d ago
This country is a shithole
[−] jeremie_strand 54d ago
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[−] theturtle 54d ago
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[−] java-man 55d ago
Step 2 in a nazi takeover of the United States. More is coming.