NationalFILE - The Transportation Security Administration's new facial recognition technology is seen at a Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport security checkpoint, April 26, 2023, in Glen Burnie, Md. The U.S. government has started requiring migrants without passports to submit to facial recognition technology to take domestic flights under a change that prompted confusion Tuesday, March 12, 2024, among immigrants and advocacy groups in Texas.
Agency officials did not say when TSA made the change, only that it was recent and not in response to a specific security threat.Migrants and strained communities on the U.S.-Mexico border have become increasingly dependent on airlines to get people to other cities where they have friends and family and where Border Patrol often orders them to go to proceed with their immigration claims.
“It caused a tremendous amount 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.