By VALERIE GONZALEZ (Associated Press)
The U.S. government has begun insisting that migrants without passports use facial recognition technology to take domestic flights, which caused confusion this week among immigrants and advocacy groups in Texas.
The exact date of the change is not clear, but several migrants with flights out of South Texas on Tuesday said they thought they were being turned away. This included people who had used the government’s online appointment system for their immigration cases. Advocates were also worried about migrants who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally before being processed by Border Patrol agents and released to pursue their immigration cases.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told The Associated Press on Thursday that migrants without proper photo ID who want to board flights have to use facial recognition technology to confirm their identity using Department of Homeland Security records.
The agency added, “If TSA cannot match their identity to DHS records, they will also be denied entry into the secure areas of the airport and will be denied boarding.”
TSA officials did not specify when the change was made, only that it was recent and not in response to a specific security threat.
It’s not clear how many migrants might be affected. Some have foreign passports.
Migrants and communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have become increasingly reliant on airlines to transport them to cities where they have friends and family, and where Border Patrol often instructs them to go to continue with their immigration claims.
Groups working with migrants said the change took them by surprise. Migrants were concerned they might lose the money they spent on nonrefundable tickets. After a group of migrants returned to a shelter in McAllen on Tuesday, saying they were turned away at the airport, advocates exchanged messages trying to understand the new TSA procedures.
“It caused a lot of distress for people,” said the Rev. Brian Strassburger, the executive director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, a group in Texas that provides humanitarian aid and advocacy for migrants.
Strassburger mentioned that in the past, migrants were able to board flights with documents they received from Border Patrol.
One woman from Ecuador traveling with her child told the AP that she was able to board without difficulty on Wednesday after allowing officers to take her photo at the TSA checkpoint.
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