After video of a woman crying while being arrested by two ICE officers went viral, DHS clarified who was arrested at the San Francisco airport and why.
After Donald Trump ordered the deployment of ICE to airports to help deal with long queues, hundreds of TSA employees walked off the job over non-payment, sparking fears that these immigration agents will now violently arrest people at airports. A video of a woman traveling with her child crying at the San Francisco airport as ICE agents arrested her has gone viral. The agents were not wearing any masks and when other passengers asked the agents to show their badges, they did not comply and continued to force themselves on the woman. “I don’t know who you are,” a man in the background of the video asked the agents to show them proof they were from ICE. The woman said, “Maybe someone is kidnapping him.” But the agents did not respond. 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 agents’ satisfaction and was violently taken into ICE custody. But the incident occurred on Sunday, before ICE agents were deployed to manage the TSA crisis on Monday. Airport officials also said it was nothing to do with the new ICE deployment, that it was an immigration arrest. Airport spokesman Doug Yackel said the violent arrests were unrelated to Trump’s directive.“We understand that federal officers were escorting 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 there is no reason to suspect the SFO will take wider enforcement action… We were not involved in or informed about this incident in advance. Airport operations continued without disruption and there was no impact on flights or passenger processing.“Utah state senator Nate Blouin wrote on Twitter, “I flew to San Francisco last night at 10 and due to a ‘security’ issue we were stuck on the tarmac for 30 minutes. Can’t imagine it was anything other than that.” Silly.”
DHS says there was order to remove illegal aliens
DHS also confirmed that the incident occurred before the deployment of ICE over the TSA crisis and that no US citizens were arrested. “This arrest of illegal aliens occurred yesterday, March 22, 2026 – before ICE officers were deployed to airports to boost TSA efforts. ICE officers arrested Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and Wendy Godinez-Lopez at San Francisco International Airport. These illegal aliens had a final order of removal from an immigration judge since 2019. While being transported to the international terminal for processing, Lopez-Jimenez attempted to flee and resisted law enforcement officers. ICE is working as quickly as possible to return the family unit to their home country of Guatemala, DHS said in a statement.