The Department of Homeland Security rebuked U.S. airline companies Wednesday for refusing to transport children from family units separated at the southern border, telling the private sector entities that its agents are the ones who keep passengers safe.
[Also read: Trump signs executive order allowing joint family detention]
“For 15 years, the Department of Homeland Security has worked diligently with America’s airlines to secure aviation and facilitate the travel by air of millions of Americans and visitors and we will continue to do so,” DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton said in a statement following the airlines’ announcements criticizing family separations at the southern border.
DHS administers all security checkpoints at airports across the country. Transportation Security Administration agents are responsible for inspecting passengers and luggage prior to departure while U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers process arrivals from foreign locations.
“It’s unfortunate that American, United, and Frontier Airlines no longer want to partner with the brave men and women of DHS to protect the traveling public, combat human trafficking, and to swiftly reunite unaccompanied illegal immigrant children with their families,” Houlton said. “These airlines clearly do not understand our immigration laws and the long-standing devastating loopholes that have caused.”
The trio of airlines each announced Wednesday the government should not use its planes to fly children who had been separated from parents after the family units illegally enter the U.S. between ports of entry.
American Airlines acknowledged it was not aware of the Departments of Health and Human Services or Homeland Security purchasing tickets for the minors, but meant it as a warning that it would not be complicit because the actions violated company values.
A woman claimed in a Facebook post June 15 that her friend, a flight attendant for an unspecified airline, believes to have seen a group of minors being flown from Arizona to Florida earlier in the day.
