After Donald Trump ordered ICE deployment in airports to help move long queues, as hundreds of TSA workers quit over nonpayment, panic spread that these immigration agents would now violently arrest people at airports. A video of a woman traveling with her child went viral at the San Francisco airport as she was crying when ICE agents arrested her.
The agents were not wearing any masks, and when other travelers asked the agents to show their badges, they did not comply and continued forcing the woman. “I don’t know who you are,” one said in the background of the video asking the agents to show evidence that they were from ICE. “You could be someone kidnapping her,” the woman said.
But the agents did not react.
Some social media users claimed that the woman was a US citizen traveling with her young daughter but she could not prove her citizenship to the satisfaction of the agents and was taken into ICE custody violently.
But the incident happened on Sunday before ICE agents were deployed to manage TSA crisis on Monday. The airport authroties also said that it had nothing to do with the new ICE deployment, it was an immigration arrest.
Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said that the violent arrest had no relation to Trump’s directive.
“We understand federal officers were transporting two individuals on an outbound flight when this incident occurred,” he wrote in an email to The New Republic. “We believe this is an isolated incident and have no reason to suspect broader enforcement action at SFO…. We were not involved in or notified in advance of this incident. Airport operations continued without disruption, and there was no impact to flights or passenger processing.”
“I flew into San Francisco at 10pm last night & we got stuck on the tarmac for 30 minutes because of a ‘security’ issue. Can’t imagine it was anything other than this,” Utah State Senator Nate Blouin wrote on X. “Trump making things worse for travelers to target our neighbors. Gas prices up. Global safety down. Idiotic.”
DHS says illegal aliens had removal order
DHS also confirmed that the incident took place before the ICE deployment over TSA crisis and no US citizens were arrested. “This arrest of ILLEGAL ALIENS occurred yesterday on March 22, 2026 — BEFORE ICE officers were deployed to airports to bolster TSA efforts. ICE officers arrested Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and Wendy Godinez-Lopez at the San Francisco International Airport. These illegal aliens had a final removal order of removal from an immigration judge since 2019. While being escorted to the international terminal for processing, Lopez-Jimenez attempted to flee and resisted law enforcement officers. ICE is working as quickly as possible to repatriate the family unit to their home country of Guatemala,” the DHS said in a statement.
