Following Thursday’s Senate confirmation of David Cummins as administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), American Oversight called on him to immediately provide Congress and the public with a full accounting of TSA’s formal data-sharing partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including reconciling newly disclosed records that appear at odds with prior sworn congressional testimony about the program. We obtained and released the agreement earlier this week.
The agreement, obtained through our Freedom of Information Act litigation, revealed that TSA and ICE entered into a formal memorandum of agreement (MOA) establishing procedures for sharing, storing, and managing information under the agencies’ partnership. The agreement appears at odds with then-Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill’s sworn congressional testimony that TSA does not “send the information to ICE; we help ICE check against [TSA] information.” In an apparent contradiction, the MOA establishes a formal data-sharing arrangement and outlines procedures for ICE to retain information obtained from TSA.
The apparent disparity between the newly disclosed agreement and McNeill’s testimony also raises fresh questions about Cummins’ response when senators sought answers about the program during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. Cummins refused to commit to providing Congress with details about the information TSA shares with ICE, saying only that the agency would “try to provide as much as we can within our bounds.” Now that he has been confirmed, Cummins should fulfill that commitment by providing complete answers to Congress and the public and clarifying prior testimony.
“David Cummins has an obligation to come clean about TSA’s formal partnership with ICE,” said our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “Congress and the public deserve a full accounting of what passenger information TSA shares with ICE, how that information is used, and what safeguards, if any, protect Americans’ personal information. These newly disclosed records suggest the administration has built a far more formal system for sharing passenger information than it previously acknowledged. This system could help facilitate surveillance, detention, and deportation — creating profound consequences for people who rely on air travel. Now that he has been confirmed, Cummins should explain how this program operates and reconcile the newly disclosed agreement with his agency’s prior sworn testimony.”
In December 2025, reporting revealed that TSA was sharing passenger information with ICE to identify travelers for possible immigration enforcement. While the Trump administration publicly described the arrangement as routine information sharing between DHS agencies, it never disclosed that the partnership had been formalized through an MOA. That previously undisclosed agreement reveals the extent to which the agencies institutionalized their collaboration.
The MOA’s public release arrives as scrutiny of airport immigration arrests continues to grow following several recent incidents, including in Boston, Las Vegas, and Denver, and after reporting indicates TSA shared information on more than 31,000 travelers, leading to more than 800 immigration-related arrests.
The records add to a growing body of evidence that the Trump administration has increasingly relied on sensitive information collected by federal agencies for purposes far beyond those for which it was originally gathered. We previously obtained records revealing an agreement requiring the Internal Revenue Service to share taxpayer information with ICE. The TSA agreement suggests that information collected to facilitate safe domestic air travel has likewise become part of the administration’s broader immigration enforcement strategy.
We filed suit after DHS failed to produce records responsive to FOIA requests seeking agreements, policies, communications, and other records concerning TSA’s cooperation with ICE. We will continue pursuing records concerning the implementation of the agreement, including how passenger information is shared and used, what safeguards, if any, govern the program, and how the partnership impacts millions of travelers.
