Josh Hawley Demands Answers from TSA for Allowing Illegal Aliens to Present Arrest Warrants as Valid ID

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator David Pekoske on Monday, inquiring why the TSA is allowing illegal aliens to present arrest warrants as valid forms of identification, stressing that both TSA and the Department of Homeland Security “should be focusing their efforts on their core responsibilities, such as preventing entry into the United States by those who pose a threat to homeland security.”

“I write with alarm over reports that you are allowing illegal aliens to present arrest warrants and notices of deportation as valid identification to pass checkpoints and board commercial airplanes. This policy subverts the rule of law and should be rescinded immediately,” Hawley began, citing a spokesman for TSA who told Fox News that “non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not otherwise have acceptable forms of ID for presentation at security checkpoints” can use other “DHS-issued forms, including ICE Form I-200 (Warrant for Arrest of an Alien).”

He also presented Pekoske with his own words, as he said TSA “established a process where it will accept certain DHS-issued forms for non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not have otherwise acceptable forms of ID for presentation at its security checkpoints,” which includes the warrants and notices of deportation. 

“This is unacceptable. No government security agency should permit individuals to use an arrest warrant or deportation notice to pass a security check,” the senator said, noting the fundamental point of an arrest warrant is “for police to actively seek out and apprehend criminals.”

The fact that they can present these as a valid form of ID to travel is what Hawley calls a “dystopian inversion” which “exceeds the point of absurdity where radical open-border policies attempt to accomplish the very opposite of DHS’s core mission: apprehending those who cross our borders illegally”:

DHS and TSA should be focusing their efforts on their core responsibilities, such as preventing entry into the United States by those who pose a threat to homeland security— like Malik Faisal Akram, who recently flew from the United Kingdom into a New York airport and attempted an anti-Semitic terrorist attack in a Texas synagogue. It is time to reverse policies that glorify illegal immigration and start enforcing our immigration laws. 

Hawley provided a series of questions in his letter, asking which DHS components developed the policy and inquiring how many individuals TSA has permitted to travel after using arrest warrants or deportation notices as ID, among other questions, which he requested answers to by February 28, 2022. 

Hawley is not the only individual who has sounded the alarm over this policy. Speaking to Breitbart News Saturday over the weekend, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, laid out the disastrous situation on the southern border, noting that the Biden administration is “shipping single adult males right into our towns knowing they’re putting criminal aliens on flights.”

“You can’t get on a plane without proper identification, but they can literally use their arrest warrant for being here illegally as their identification to the TSA. These are some of the things we want to point out,” Perry explained as he previewed the “unsanctioned” House Freedom Caucus hearing examining Biden’s open border policies, which is taking place on Tuesday.