According to the Minneapolis airport, ICE agents will be “checking and verifying documents” for the next 3 weeks and that this will include patrolling jet bridges.
The Metropolitan Airports Commission says it doesn’t get advance notice of enfocement at the airport, and doesn’t coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but that federal regulations give federal agents broad access to airport property. The agency refuses comment.
Bear in mind that:
- U.S. citizens aren’t required to show ID. Green card holders are required to carry their card.
- Citizens may still want to comply or else ICE might detain you improperly. Citizens in Minnesota have been violently detained by ICE. However, U.S. citizens have also been detained when ICE dismissed their IDs as fake.
- Minneapolis drivers licenses are available regardless of citizenship. Those with illegal presence can get one. That’s not a REAL ID, but you can still go through a security checkpoint without REAL ID.
Positioning on jet bridges is a post-security choke point where it’s easy to intercept someone right before boarding or immediately after deplaning. And the agency has broad authority within 100 miles of a border and most people live within 100 miles of the border. This is the ‘border exception’ where rights are said not to apply. Here, two U.S. citizens were arrested by a border officer for speaking Spanish at a convenience store in Montana.
ICE has expanded rapidly and has been badly managed for many years, creating a dangerous culture and one hostile to citizens and non-citizens alike.
- They have near-total authority. At ports of entry and within the 100-mile “border zone,” officers may search and question people without warrants or traditional Fourth Amendment thresholds.
- Immunity/no recourse. They have near-immunity from civil suits. In Egbert v. Boule (2022) the Supreme Court closed almost all Bivens-type damage claims against CBP agents, removing personal liability as a deterrent for bad behavior that exists for many other federal officers.
- CBP has a paramilitary, threat-hunting mindset. They wear uniforms, side arms, and go through drill-style briefings. Their chain-of-command ethos rewards compliance and toughness, not customer interaction.
- Expanded too quickly. Over the past two decades they’ve more than doubled their workforce, diluting requisite training and also leading to quality dilution of supervisors.
- Incentives matter. Performance metrics incentivize seizures, arrests and “hits.” Officers receive commendations, overtime and promotion points for enforcement statistics. There is no equivalent metric for traveler satisfaction.
- No discipline. There’s very little internal discipline. 97% of complaints end in “No Action Taken.” According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, 47% of CBP employees don’t think misconduct is punished at any level.
- Union protections. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the ~30,000 CBP Office of Field Operations employees (including CBP Officers), negotiates “last chance” and arbitration provisions that make removals for misconduct difficult – and given the litigation managers have to deal with they regualrly don’t bother.
- Power differential. Most people being inspected lack legal representation, time, or practical recourse. The power differential itself breeds an imperious dynamic unless an individual officer chooses otherwise.
- Personnel inclined to this behavior self-select into the role. CBP’s structure and recruiting pipeline create self-selection effects. Jobs that promise wide discretionary power, symbols of authority, generous overtime, early retirement, and a quasi-military identity tend to pull in applicants who are more disposed to hierarchy, control, and confrontation. Additionally, more than one-third of CBP’s workforce is ex-military.
Hayek’s chapter 10 in The Road to Serfdom (“Why The Worst Get On Top”) argues that in areas of centralized political decision-making, advancement hinges on wielding coercion, systematically rewarding the most ruthless, unscrupulous, and manipulative individuals, while crowding out those with stronger morals or respect for dissent. In short: concentrated power acts as a selection filter, so “the worst get on top.”
Stepped-up presence in Minneapolis feels responsive to anti-immigration enforcement activism in the area. It seems to punish local resistance.
TSA has its own problems, but at least their presence is aligned with an an aviation security goal. They check identity against government watch lists, and shouldn’t be distracted with checking for legal presence.
Having an additional checkpoint at gates has no legitimate connection to air travel, and in fact serves as a government discreationary layer over the right to travel. And make no mistake, there is a right to travel by air.
The right to move freely between states is a well-established principle in U.S. law affirmed by several Supreme Court cases under the Privileges and Immunities Clause and Commerce Clause.
- Crandall v. Nevada (1868) struck down a Nevada law imposing a tax on individuals leaving the state because states couldn’t restrict citizen movement across state lines.
- United States v. Guest (1966) held that there is a Constitutional right to travel from state to state.
- Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) held that states could not impose residency requirements to restrict welfare benefits. The Court found that the right to travel includes the right to migrate to another state and receive equal treatment as a resident.
- Saenz v. Roe (1999) struck down a California law that limited welfare benefits for new residents. The Court delineated three components of the right to travel: The right to enter and leave another state; the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than a hostile outsider; the right to become a resident of any state and enjoy the same privileges and immunities as other residents.
Traveling between distant domestic points, and between domestic points including the mainland and U.S. territories, without air travel is impractical and burdening the right to travel makes it difficult, inadvisable, or uncomfortable to exercise the right. There may still be balancing of the right against other government interests, but it’s a right nonetheless.
Federal agents are sometimes at jet bridges at boarding and arrival for international flights at JFK. It’s never been an issue, but, it would be unusual for domestic flights. Hoping this is not just a way to intimidate people, yet, inevitably, I suppose it is. Fortunately, most people who travel by air have their documentation ready. Be safe.
All those comments at the end are useless when you have the current admin in power and the generally broad immunity that ICE enjoys. The rush to call the slain girl a domestic terrorist and not even pretend about an impartial investigation tells you all you need to know in case there was any doubt.
You are correct in that US citizens are not required to carry identification. That said, within 100 miles of any US land or sea border they are required to supply information to assist CBP / ICE agents to enable identification.
Every single non-US citizen is required to carry identification and evidence of their immigration status at all times. Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
Instead of acting like a whiny little baby, you can make things easy on yourself and avoid unnecessary delay by just answering the CBP / ICE agents questions. Going into whiny little baby mode will just cause problems and very likely mean you will miss your flight and lose the money you paid for your ticket.
Of course, on the plus side it’s always funny watching social justice warriors dragged down the sewer when they try to fight armed law enforcement personnel. Personally I like watching that.
I really would like to see Congress impose some reasonable limits on ICE and CBP. To start with, the 100-mile limit needs to be rolled back to around 20 miles. The larger limit gives ICE control over entire states, essentially removing civil liberties from those citizens. Of course, that won’t occur until there is a reasonable Congress and President in place, so not any time soon.
@J.C. — Have your ‘fun’ while it lasts, yet… “when they try to fight armed law enforcement personnel” …oh, like on January 6, 2021? Those mere ‘tourists’ at the Capitol should have just ‘compiled,’ right?
yuck. and I’m supposed to fly through MSP a few times coming up. Might need to change that
@Ron gets it. Congress needs to grow a spine. So do the Courts. So do businesses and law firms. So do we all.
The unsaid reality is that these agents are absolutely going to target people of color, even if they are citizens, naturalized, or lawful residents with green cards, etc. (Sadly, if you’re of Somali descent in Minneapolis, best advice is to just stay home for a little while.)
And, ironically, it’s the outspoken mostly-white liberal citizens (who apparently are now getting murdered, too) that are going to ‘speak their minds’ (yes, they will ‘disrespect’ those agents, who are over-reaching here, and honestly, deserve to be told ‘no’ and ‘enough is enough’) as is their right under the First Amendment (you can still tell our government to ‘F off’ if you want to).
Ultimately, this nonsense will delay flights, and likely have people unnecessarily detained (and miss their flights). Seems bad for business. Seems bad for nearly everyone. Maybe ‘good’ in the moment for those who live off ‘hate’ for others, but, that does not sustain anyone.
Some will try to draw the false equivalence to the pandemic: ‘but, but.. they did this to us over masks…’ No, not the same, like, at all. How many times, old man…
Recent news reports indicate that hundreds of millions of dollars has been flowing from Minnesota to the Middle East and then to Somalia, often via AMS.
There won’t be CBP officers on flights to North Dakota or Texas.
They know what they are looking for and are going to be at the flights where they think they will find something.
It has been a cold, long winter in Minnesota and it doesn’t look like the thaw is coming anytime soon.
You need an ID to get through security. It’s not hard to present it to authorities. Funny how under the Obama administration when he was deporting over three million, no one protested. The professional protesters and agitators only come out when a Repub is running the country
The police state grows and grows. The United States is not a free country. I hope someday liberty may be restored.
@Tim Dunn — If you want Delta’s MSP operations to be strained by this noise, go for it, keep exaggerating and promoting conspiracy theories. No, better yet, let’s do ICE at all DL jet bridges. That’ll be so ‘welcoming’… better ‘arm them,’ too. Like long-rifles, not mere hand-guns. That’ll do. /s
@Coffee Please — It’s not about ID. Everyone has it already. These secondary searches are just about intimidation and political theater. If it were the other team doing this to Texans, you’d riot.
@DaveS — Yeah, it’s tragic. Didn’t need to be this way. We let this happen. We can undo it, too.
For what this is worth I flew to London from Istanbul last year. My documents were checked 3 times within a space of about 10 feet before boarding the plane. More interestingly, the flight was met by officers of the UK Border Force in London, also checking documents.
This is too much police state for me. These are domestic flights. Most people do not carry a passport on domestic flights, even if they have a passport. I want every one of the Somalians gone, including the crook in the Congress. But not this way.
ICE is starting to be much more like an armed street gang than any respectable law enforcement agency.
The politicians complain about Iran and yet support ICE agents.
1990
I get that you instinctively respond w/ hate about anything this administration does but the simple fact is that they are finding and continue to find people that have committed illegal activity including major crimes against other people such as murder and sexual assault and worse.
The American people as a whole – and that is true about the vast majority of people worldwide – want to live freely and peacefully. Living in fear of criminals is not peace or freedom.
I don’t really care who does the job but I want criminals off the streets and if there is a legal basis for them to be removed from the country, then they should be.
Minnesota has clearly been influenced for years by illegal activity focused on immigrants of one particular nationality on top of the usual criminals from other parts of the world.
It is precisely because we don’t have borders between states that a threat in one part of the US is a threat to all states and all US residents.
and impeding someone who is armed, law enforcement or not, is just beyond stupid. stupid sometimes results in bad consequences, CBP or not.
Coffee Please, I got a kick out of that, “professional protesters and agitators” line. It’s what Reagan said I was when marching against the Vietnam War. And all of us are still waiting for our checks from Moscow. But there isn’t much money to be made standing up for what our country should be. Maybe I’d do better being a masked thug who drags people off the streets. I guess the millions of us are just dupes for actually believing in the Bill of Rights, and acting on that, no matter what the risk.
For what it is worth they didn’t even ask to see our passports, other than the biometric photo being taken when I arrived at MSP on an international flight.
I have a couple of trips that I need to book out of MSP in the coming weeks; I guess I’ll monitor how this activity actually unfolds before finalizing the plans.
If it’s more like how it’s happening in the streets here, I’ll stay home. If it’s more orderly document check I’ll probably be fine.
@drrichard — As always, you get it, sir. Thank you.
@Doug — Yeah, ICE is basically becoming #47’s personal paramilitary. This doesn’t end well.
@George Romey — Lost me on the second half, but, at least we agree that this is too much ‘police state’ for mere domestic flights.
@Tim Dunn — Holy right-wing propaganda, Batman! This is not about any of that; it’s about a Delta hub that’s gonna be a ghost-town in-part because of this unnecessary escalation. You’re welcome to pretend, as some others are, but, no, none of this is necessary, and airlines, workers, and passengers are gonna be needlessly harmed by this. I wish more corporations would actually stand-up for decency and better sense, here. Apparently, if you’re any indication, they won’t.