Press Releases 01/31/2022 Tillis Leads Letter to DHS Demanding Answers on Illegal Immigrants Using ICE Arrest Warrants to Board Airplanes

Source: United States Senator for North Carolina Thom Tillis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mike Braun (R-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) recently sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas regarding the alarming news that illegal immigrants are being permitted to use Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest warrants as an acceptable form of identification by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to board airplanes.

“The Department of Homeland Security is tasked with both enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and with keeping our nation safe,” wrote the senators. “Permitting the use of ICE arrest warrants as travel documents is at best illogical, and at worst a serious threat to our nation’s homeland security.”

“As DHS Secretary, you are responsible for setting policy not only for the Department as a whole, but for its component parts – including ICE and TSA,” continued the senators. “The decision to allow ICE arrest warrants to serve as permissible travel documents inherently places one component of the Department in unacceptable tension with another component. This tension threatens the safety and well-being of hardworking American citizens.” 

“We struggle to understand why TSA would permit dangerous, criminal illegal aliens to use ICE arrest warrants to fly. This policy appears not only to be misguided, but also to defy the purpose of these arrest warrants in the first place. Please respond to these critical questions as soon as possible,”the senators concluded.

Read the full letter here

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