ICE activity at Bradley Airport, Connecticut officials confirm
Federal immigration officers have been active at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, state officials said Friday.
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been carrying out enforcement activity past the airport security checkpoints at Bradley, according to spokesperson Cathryn Vaulman with Gov. Ned Lamont’s office.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, said in a statement late Friday afternoon that ICE was “conducting covert enforcement operations” at both Bradley and Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport in New Haven.
“ICE has allegedly used passengers’ personal pre-flight data, including names, addresses and credit card numbers, to identify individuals and remove them from security lines as part of the routine screening process,” Larson's statement said. “The Connecticut Airport Authority was never notified of these actions and has still not been briefed on how many people have been taken so far.”
It wasn’t immediately clear Friday whether the immigration officers had taken anyone into custody at either airport.
The Connecticut Airport Authority, which operates Bradley, said in a statement late Friday that it “has been made aware that ICE agents have conducted several targeted operations in recent weeks at Bradley International Airport.”
The agents wore plain clothes and “were not readily identifiable as ICE agents,” according to CAA, which said it only learned about these operations after they occurred and said it had no authority to stop them.
“The mission of the CAA is to provide the safest and most convenient facilities for our workforce and the many families and individuals traveling through Bradley International Airport, and this initiative does not further that mission,” the statement said.
A representative with the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority said it had not received notice from TSA, the federal agency that oversees security screenings for most commercial flights, of any activity at the airport by ICE.
TSA did not immediately return a request for comment Friday evening.
Connecticut isn’t alone. There have been reports this week about ramped-up ICE activity at airports across the country — including two arrests at airports in San Francisco and Denver that were caught on video. The activity comes as the agency is on pace to set a new record for arrests during President Donald Trump’s second term, with some 1,400 a day during the first 12 days of July, according to The Washington Post.
It’s all part of a promise Trump made when he first ran for the White House in 2016 and renewed before he returned to office last year — to oversee perhaps the largest mass deportation operation in the nation’s history.
Larson blasted the actions in his statement.
“They are past reform. ICE needs to be abolished, and Secretary Mullin must resign,” he said, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose department oversees both ICE and the Transportation Security Administration.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declined Friday to say whether its immigration agents were at either airport, citing “operational security.”
“ICE agents uphold our nation’s immigration laws in all 50 states, seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” the department said in an unsigned statement.
The state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which includes the Connecticut State Police, received official notice from TSA that ICE was active at Bradley, according to department spokesperson Rick Green.
Connecticut’s Trust Act places strict limits on how the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and other state and local agencies can interact with ICE and what information they can share with federal immigration authorities.
“The state police have no role in this,” Green said. “They have no role in it. They’re not assisting it. They have no communication (with ICE).”
The New York Times reported last December that TSA has been sharing with ICE the names and birth dates of travelers who may be subject to deportation.
Tabitha Sookdeo with Connecticut Students for a Dream said her organization had not directly received any referrals concerning arrests by ICE at either Bradley or Tweed as of Friday. However, Sookdeo said ICE activity at the airports could increase given the national news.
“We are working closely with the governor’s office to get more information about what is transpiring,” she told CT Insider in a statement.