TSA allowing illegal immigrants on planes with arrest warrants for ID

The Transportation Security Administration is allowing illegal immigrants without proper identification to board planes using their arrest warrants as an alternate form of identification.

TSA first provided the information to Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), following his request to the federal agency for clarification regarding its policies and procedures to mitigate national security risks, The Daily Caller reported.

"TSA's response confirms the Biden Administration is knowingly putting our national security at risk," Gooden told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "Unknown and unvetted immigrants shouldn't even be in the country, much less flying without proper identification."

A TSA spokesperson told Fox News, "For non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not otherwise have acceptable forms of ID for presentation at security checkpoints, TSA may also accept certain DHS-issued forms, including ICE Form I-200 (Warrant for Arrest of an Alien)."

The ICE form is a civil immigration arrest warrant, not a criminal arrest warrant, the news outlet noted.

The document is then validated by its "alien identification number," which is checked through multiple Customs and Border Protection (CBP) databases.

"All passengers whose identity is verified through alternate procedures receive additional screening before being allowed into the secure area of the airport," TSA told Fox News.

While the policy is from before the Biden administration, Republicans are bringing attention to it amidst the border crisis.

John Zadrozny, director of the Center for Homeland Security and Immigration of the America First Policy Institute, told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday's episode, "You literally have a federal agency saying, 'We are so desperate to let illegal aliens travel about the country and have the ability to do what they want, that we'll let them use an arrest warrant to board a plane.'"

The former Trump administration official called it "insane" for multiple reasons, including that if he tried to use an arrest warrant to board a plane, "I'm pretty sure they'd call law enforcement." 

The policy, he said, "raises the question: Why isn't TSA calling law enforcement to have someone who presents an arrest warrant picked up?"

"[I]t's also in keeping with this administration's forced decline on immigration enforcement," Zadrozny added, "and just general intent to glut the border. They don't really have any interest in security.

"And so we can have a theoretical conversation about what our immigration should look like, what legislation we need to pass. This isn't that; this is just a total abdication on the public safety obligation of the federal government to make sure dangerous people aren't traveling in our airways."