Advocates to launch campaign to stop ICE arrests at the Philly airport, where dozens have been taken into custody
Campaign organizers say at least 50 immigrant travelers, young and old, mostly female, some the parents of young children, have been arrested at the airport since July
Local advocacy groups and political leaders are poised to launch a major campaign to try to stop ICE arrests at Philadelphia International Airport.
Dozens of immigrant travelers have been taken into custody there in the last five months, they say, and an unknown number of people have been handcuffed at airports in other cities while attempting to fly home to Philadelphia.
Organizers believe the South Philadelphia airport has become one of the riskiest places in the region for non-citizens, where work authorizations, pending petitions for relief, and other types of immigration permissions have proven no barrier against arrest.
The leaders plan a formal Thursday announcement of a public-awareness campaign ― several City Council members are expected to attend ― that they say could escalate into exerting financial pressure upon companies that do business at the airport.
“The Philadelphia airport is our airport,” said one campaign leader, Aurora Muñoz, the organizing manager of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “It’s horrible, the kinds of freedoms that people are losing, so that’s why we’re wanting to be in this fight.”
The airport is owned and operated by the city, which recently passed extensive “ICE Out” legislation to try to limit agency activities within Philadelphia. Sam Scavuzzo, chief of staff for the city law department, said in an earlier statement, however, that “federal law enforcement access to particular areas of the airport is governed by federal law.”
Campaign organizers say at least 50 immigrant travelers, young and old, mostly female, some the parents of young children, have been arrested at the airport since July.
Those numbers could actually be higher, as the known cases represent only people who reached out to lawyers or community organizations. Immigrant travelers without those connections or resources may simply have disappeared into detention.
Some of the incidents involving Philadelphia-area residents include:
On Sept. 15, Delaware County nurse Monica Ryadi was arrested when she stepped off a plane in Los Angeles, handcuffed in an ICE operation that she suspects began in Philadelphia. A stranger had approached her family in the boarding area, but didn’t get on the flight, Ryadi said. The 30-year-old hospital nurse, who with her husband was taking their 3-year-old son to Disneyland, has legal permission to live and work in the United States. A federal magistrate judge subsequently ordered her freed from ICE detention.
On Sept. 2, a Philadelphia man who thought he was waiting for approval of a green card was arrested outside the San Jose airport when he arrived to fly home from a business trip. Michael “Sandy” Sims, 42, an entertainment-lighting industry veteran, was deported to London after being held in detention for about a month. His wife, a U.S. citizen, unsuccessfully fought to keep her husband from being removed.
On July 11, a South Philadelphia babysitter was arrested at the Philadelphia airport as she prepared to fly to Kansas City to see the Argentina national soccer team play in the World Cup. Iliana Lick, 30, originally from Buenos Aires, was held in detention for about a month before a judge facilitated her release by setting bond. Homeland Security said Lick overstayed her visa, and that her work authorization and pending application for immigration relief did not confer legal status.
Asked about the airport campaign, a spokesperson for Homeland Security said on Friday that obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime and assaulting law enforcement is a felony offense.
“Our message remains: ICE is NOT slowing down,” the agency said. “Enforcing federal immigration law is the responsibility of federal law enforcement. This administration does not ignore the rule of law and DHS will not pick and choose which laws we enforce.”
DHS said it had “reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country. Under President Trump, DHS will no longer tolerate this. 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.”
Efforts to reach Philadelphia airport officials were not immediately succesful on Friday.
The new ICE OUT of PHL Airport Coalition consists of 50-some leaders and organizations, including labor and cultural groups, among them the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, the Worri Center, Puentes de Salud, the Coalition of African Communities, Amistad Law Project, Women Against Abuse, UNITE HERE Local 274, and the office of Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
They plan to hold a news conference at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at the airport’s Terminal E Departures.
Organizers say they are discussing plans with national civil-rights groups including the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco and the New-York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. AALDEF previously, successfully fought in Philadelphia, its federal complaint against the city public schools resulting in a landmark settlement over violence against Asian students in 2010.
“We want the general public to be aware that this is happening at the airport, so they can keep their community safe, their neighbors safe,” said Elena Emelchin Brunner, the immigration justice organizer at Asian Americans United. “We’re very open to working with airport leadership to see if and what they can do.”
The coalition is calling for specific actions.
They want airport leadership to ban ICE from entering airport property without a judicial warrant, to prohibit airport employees from assisting ICE, and to bar ICE from using city-owned airport spaces to stage arrests.
They want the airport to publish regular public reports documenting ICE activity, including the number of people detained and the airlines they intended to fly.
They want airlines that use the Philadelphia airport to bar ICE agents from going to flight gates, and to not share passenger information with the agency. They’re also asking airport concession companies to not discipline workers when they miss work due to fear of ICE activity.
The campaign comes as a response to President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations ― including the targeting of immigrant travelers at airports around the country.
Immigrants who long thought they were safe, and who had previously been able to fly without incident, now are at risk, in some cases finding themselves suddenly surrounded by agents and shipped to far-off detention centers in places like New Mexico.
Airports rank among the nation’s most sensitive public spaces, traversed by millions of people that include U.S. citizens, noncitizens, and mixed-status families, California immigration lawyer Andrew Neitor wrote for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The introduction of ICE agents, he said, blurs critical lines between airport security and immigration enforcement, around what authority is being exercised and by whom, and over the legal protections due to people who may be arrested.
Part of what enables the surge of airport arrests is that federal agencies have begun sharing information about travelers in a way that wasn’t done before.
Since May 2025 the Trump administration has used information that passengers provide to the Transportation Security Administration as a means to further immigration enforcement, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a government watchdog group.
Those records outline a formal data-sharing agreement between TSA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agreement said sharing the data would enhance national security, transportation safety, and immigration management, but civil liberties groups say it breaches public trust and turns airports into immigrant checkpoints.
“We are really focusing on public awareness because we don’t want this happening in silence,” Emelchin Brunner said. “It is kind of like an invisible presence in Philadelphia, regarding ICE and their behavior, including at the airport. … We want to make sure that everyone feels safe connecting with their families.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
