Tuesday, American Oversight released a previously undisclosed agreement showing that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) formalized a data-sharing partnership amid the Trump administration’s controversial expansion of immigration enforcement into domestic air travel. Provisions of that agreement appear at odds with sworn congressional testimony by agency leadership about the sharing and storage of sensitive passenger information.
The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), signed in May 2025, was produced after we sued TSA and ICE under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for failing to release records about the arrangement. The lawsuit sought documents explaining the program’s legal basis, what passenger information was being shared, and how that information was being used to expand immigration enforcement into domestic air travel.
The MOA establishes a formal framework governing how TSA and ICE coordinate the sharing, storage, and management of information under the agencies’ partnership. As the legal basis for TSA’s participation, the agreement expressly cites the Secure Flight Final Rule, the regulation governing the collection and use of passenger information for aviation security. The agreement states that TSA intends to share specified data elements with ICE and that ICE will store information received from TSA in its own repository, while appendices identifying the specific data to be shared remain almost entirely redacted.
The document raises questions about acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill’s sworn congressional testimony earlier this year regarding how TSA and ICE exchange traveler information. During a House committee hearing, McNeill testified that TSA does not “send the information to ICE; we help ICE check against [TSA] information.” The MOA appears to conflict with that characterization by establishing a formal data-sharing arrangement and outlining procedures for ICE to retain information obtained from TSA.
“This agreement pulls back the curtain on the formal partnership between TSA and ICE that the administration refused to explain to the public. Americans provide their personal information to board a plane safely, not to become part of an immigration enforcement system or a government surveillance network,” said our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “And this isn’t just about TSA. It’s about an administration that keeps taking information Americans are required to provide for one purpose and repurposing it for another: to identify, track, and target people for immigration enforcement. That’s a dangerous precedent with consequences far beyond immigration. Once the government begins expanding how it uses Americans’ personal information, it raises profound concerns about privacy, civil liberties, and public trust.”
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 administration has remained noncommittal about providing Congress with details about the program. During his Senate committee confirmation hearing earlier this month, TSA Administrator nominee David Cummins declined to explain what information TSA shares with ICE after Sen. Gary Peters noted that the agency had failed to provide requested details despite acting Administrator McNeill’s earlier testimony. Cummins instead said he would “try to provide as much as we can within our bounds,” underscoring the administration’s continued reluctance to fully explain the scope of the arrangement.
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.
The newly released MOA could also cast the Trump administration’s efforts to tie TSA funding to broader immigration enforcement priorities in a new light. During the recent government funding debate, administration officials argued that TSA and ICE funding should move together. These records could suggest that, behind the scenes, the administration was already drawing the agencies into an operational partnership that blurs the line between protecting the traveling public and carrying out the administration’s extreme immigration agenda.
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. Through that litigation, 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.
