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TSA Requires Migrants Without Passports to Submit to Face Scans to Fly

The TSA quietly began enforcing the new rule.

The TSA has quietly begun enforcing a new rule which requires migrants without government identification to submit to facial recognition technology in order to travel domestically. The TSA did not say when this rule was installed, but several people traveling out of South Texas alerted immigration advocacy groups that they’d been redirected while trying to board their flights. Traditionally, Border Control has given migrants documents which will allow them to board flights, according to Rev. Brian Strassburger, the executive director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, an advocacy group which provides aid to migrants in Texas. The unexpected change in policy “caused a tremendous amount of distress for people,” he said. In the U.S., migrants need to have easy access to flights, so that they can reunite with their families, and to report to the cities that Border Patrol remands them to for processing. “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,” the TSA told the Associated Press.