Customs and Border Protection said Friday that an ID check of passengers conducted before they were allowed to disembark from a domestic flight was done “with consensual assistance” from travelers.
CBP said it was assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in looking for a deportation target that may have been aboard the flight that landed in New York from San Francisco Wednesday evening, so its agents requested documents from passengers before they deplaned. CPB told Rolling Stone that no one was forced to show an ID to get off the plane.
“To assist ICE, CBP requested consensual assistance from passengers aboard the flight to determine whether the removable individual in question was in fact aboard the flight,” CPB said. “In the course of seeking this assistance, CBP did not compel any of these domestic passengers to show identification.”
CPB is a border management organization responsible for screening people and things entering the U.S. It is not customary for CPB agents to check IDs of passengers arriving on domestic flights. The agency has the authority to search “all persons, baggage and merchandise arriving in the customs territory of the United States from places outside therof.” CPB said occasionally it “may, unfortunately, inconvenience law-abiding citizens in order to detect those involved in illicit activities.”
Passengers aboard the Delta flight report being told by flight attendants that they would have their ID checked when the plane arrived at the jetbridge. CPB said people cooperated and it “was able to resolve the issue with minimal delay to the traveling public.”