“ICE Begins Arresting Foreigners With Expired Visas At US Airports” — Spouses Of Citizens, Skilled Workers, Asylum Seekers Reportedly Targeted

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have begun arresting foreign nationals with expired visas at airports across the United States, including spouses of US citizens, skilled foreign workers awaiting visa extensions, former exchange visitors and migrants with pending immigration applications.
The enforcement actions were reported by The New York Times, which said it reviewed Department of Homeland Security documents and interviewed immigration lawyers representing more than 25 people from over a dozen countries who were recently detained at airports.
According to the report, the arrests have taken place in at least 15 airports in recent weeks.
Some of the arrests were reportedly carried out discreetly by plain-clothes immigration officers at check-in counters and arrival gates, while a few became public after angry passengers filmed the encounters.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson defended the enforcement actions, saying the Trump administration was working to ensure that foreigners unlawfully in the country could no longer fly within the US unless they were leaving to self-deport.
“This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” the DHS spokesperson said.
The report said ICE has a target of making about 2,000 arrests daily as part of President Donald Trump’s renewed effort to remove undocumented migrants from the United States.
Among the reported cases was a Ugandan woman with sickle cell anaemia who allegedly had an active asylum application but was still detained.
A separate CNN report said another woman was detained at an airport in the Washington, DC, area while travelling home to Texas to be with her family ahead of her father’s funeral.
Her lawyer, Joe Moravec, said the woman entered the United States legally and is seeking asylum. She is reportedly being held in Virginia.
The New York Times report did not indicate whether the immigration documents identified all the countries affected by the airport arrests.
The development comes amid growing attention on visa overstays in the United States.
According to the DHS 2024 overstay report, about 989 Nigerians on F, M and J visas, covering students and exchange visitors, remained in the US beyond the validity of their visas, representing an overstay rate of 11.90 per cent.
The same report also showed that 6,917 Nigerians who entered with B-1/B-2 visitor visas overstayed, representing an overstay rate of 5.56 per cent.
The new airport enforcement actions are expected to raise fresh concerns among immigrant communities, especially those with pending immigration applications, visa extension requests or asylum claims, as ICE intensifies arrests under the Trump administration’s deportation policy.
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