The illegal migrant arrest by ICE agents at San Francisco International Airport skipped out on immigration appointments after she entered the US in 2018, new documents reveal.
The arrest of Angelina Lopez-Jimenez on Sunday — which sparked mass online fear-mongering about President Trump’s deployment of ICE to help ease a TSA security crisis — occurred after the Guatemalan migrant skipped out on mandatory check-ins when she was found to be illegally living in the country.
In 2019, an immigration judge ordered Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter be removed from the US after they failed to appear for a scheduled court hearing, according to The New York Times. The pair was spotted by Border Patrol agents near San Luis, Arizona, on April 27, 2018, found to be in the US illegally. They were later released with a notice to appear in court.
Although they attended some initial appointments and missed others, they skipped a 2019 hearing that prompted a judge to issue a final deportation order, the Times reported.
The pair had been living in Contra Costa County and were planning to board flight to Miami on March 22, when TSA flagged their names on a passenger list and notified ICE.
After a confrontation at the San Francisco airport, they were detained and deported to Guatemala on March 24.
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“While being escorted to the international terminal for processing, Lopez-Jimenez attempted to flee and resisted law enforcement officers,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
ICE agents had not deployed at the airport at the time.
The deportation was not unusual, but part of routine immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. It drew widespread attention amid heightened scrutiny of ICE after the President deployed agents to 14 airports across the country during a partial government shutdown.
ICE agents had not deployed at the airport at the time.
The move came as TSA workers called out of work in record numbers, causing delays at airport security checkpoints.
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