TSA allowing illegal migrants to fly without proper documents
#16
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Who really knows the character of the people crossing the border?
As this article states (yes, I recognize the source isn't respected):
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/924413...mexico-border/
and this:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/06/...-texas-border/
Bottom line with over one million people who have knowingly crossed the border just this month plus some unknown number of people who have crossed undetected this is no time to use relaxed or questionable security standards at airports.
As this article states (yes, I recognize the source isn't respected):
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/924413...mexico-border/
and this:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/06/...-texas-border/
Bottom line with over one million people who have knowingly crossed the border just this month plus some unknown number of people who have crossed undetected this is no time to use relaxed or questionable security standards at airports.
Either identity is a crucial component of aviation safety or it isn't. There's no middle ground, and it's appalling that TSA gives the breaks to the people who least deserve it while doubling down on folks who are guilty of nothing more than wanting to get on an airplane.
#17
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TSA does not play 'probabilities'. They constantly remind us that it's important to check genitals and breast milk and medicines and breast cancer survivors because it only takes one time and you just never know. They also stress the importance of an ID check for security reasons that they have never disclosed, because no other country I've been to thinks who you are matters if you haven't got anything threatening on you or in your bags.
Blame Congress for that, not the TSA.
#18
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Article seems a little breathless to me. Which I would expect from the Washington Examiner.
But fundamentally, if these migrants are attempting to board domestic flights, they should be required to go through the same protocol as any other traveler. If they can't, take the bus or train or drive.
If however they're trying to fly to their country of origin, is the Examiner implying we shouldn't allow that until they acquire proper ID? In other words, until they attain citizenship? I would think the Examiner would be happy to see the back of them and the sooner, the better.
Would this be an intelligent policy or simply a bureaucratic knee-jerk response that the rules must be followed, even if these rules, having not anticipated this particular circumstance, are utterly in conflict with a more overarching policy?
But fundamentally, if these migrants are attempting to board domestic flights, they should be required to go through the same protocol as any other traveler. If they can't, take the bus or train or drive.
If however they're trying to fly to their country of origin, is the Examiner implying we shouldn't allow that until they acquire proper ID? In other words, until they attain citizenship? I would think the Examiner would be happy to see the back of them and the sooner, the better.
Would this be an intelligent policy or simply a bureaucratic knee-jerk response that the rules must be followed, even if these rules, having not anticipated this particular circumstance, are utterly in conflict with a more overarching policy?
#19
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I'm sure you're aware of this by now, but I'll answer it anyway. The airline checks your name against the no-fly database, and then the TSA makes sure that the name on your ticket, which was checked against the database, is actually the name of the person getting on the plane.
#20
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The truth is that if they treat everyone who doesn't present an ID as a selectee, matching against the no-fly list becomes somewhat unnecessary. The premise of the no-fly list is that there are certain people who are just too dangerous to fly. That isn't necessarily a premise based in reality. (Individuals are downgraded from the no-fly list to the selectee on occasion, for example).
#21
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I'm sure you're aware of this by now, but I'll answer it anyway. The airline checks your name against the no-fly database, and then the TSA makes sure that the name on your ticket, which was checked against the database, is actually the name of the person getting on the plane.
TSA definitely plays probabilities. The best example is Pre-Check, where they give expedited screening to those who have lower probability of carrying contraband. Other things like random secondary searches are also based on probabilities.
I think a one-year grace period is perfectly reasonable. They have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise people will try to fly with a 10-year old ID and insist it still looks like them.
That is the case for almost all foreigners. Even if there is DNA or fingerprint evidence available on record in their home countries, TSA doesn't have access to it.
Blame Congress for that, not the TSA.
TSA definitely plays probabilities. The best example is Pre-Check, where they give expedited screening to those who have lower probability of carrying contraband. Other things like random secondary searches are also based on probabilities.
I think a one-year grace period is perfectly reasonable. They have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise people will try to fly with a 10-year old ID and insist it still looks like them.
That is the case for almost all foreigners. Even if there is DNA or fingerprint evidence available on record in their home countries, TSA doesn't have access to it.
Blame Congress for that, not the TSA.
In the case of RealID, my memory is a little fuzzy - is TSA's stance that non-compliant DLs will no longer be accepted as valid ID for flying specifically dictated by a law, or is it their own policy based on the RealID act?
Article seems a little breathless to me. Which I would expect from the Washington Examiner.
But fundamentally, if these migrants are attempting to board domestic flights, they should be required to go through the same protocol as any other traveler. If they can't, take the bus or train or drive.
If however they're trying to fly to their country of origin, is the Examiner implying we shouldn't allow that until they acquire proper ID? In other words, until they attain citizenship? I would think the Examiner would be happy to see the back of them and the sooner, the better.
Would this be an intelligent policy or simply a bureaucratic knee-jerk response that the rules must be followed, even if these rules, having not anticipated this particular circumstance, are utterly in conflict with a more overarching policy?
But fundamentally, if these migrants are attempting to board domestic flights, they should be required to go through the same protocol as any other traveler. If they can't, take the bus or train or drive.
If however they're trying to fly to their country of origin, is the Examiner implying we shouldn't allow that until they acquire proper ID? In other words, until they attain citizenship? I would think the Examiner would be happy to see the back of them and the sooner, the better.
Would this be an intelligent policy or simply a bureaucratic knee-jerk response that the rules must be followed, even if these rules, having not anticipated this particular circumstance, are utterly in conflict with a more overarching policy?
TSA has policies in place for people who don't have valid ID - they're screened more 'thoroughly' (read: more invasively and abusively). But that's a lot of work for TSA. Using these 'notice to appear' documents as ID is a transparent form of laziness on TSA's part, a way of getting them out of fully screening all of the people in question under the no-ID policy.
The article did seem a little fearmongerish to me. But I agree in principal that TSA should be applying the same rules to all travelers with impartial consistency, and not only have they rarely done so throughout their existence, but this latest episode is a more glaring example of a whole group of people getting special treatment. Not only that, but they're getting that special treatment for the most ridiculous and frivolous of reasons: for TSA's convenience, not the travelers'.
We've discussed that particular logical fallacy ad nauseum here, but I think it bears repeating. ID doesn't matter, because it's far too easy to obtain fraudulent documents that allow an individual to obtain a real ID under an assumed name. Even with the RealID standards, it's not terribly difficult to use false documents to obtain an ID with a clean, assumed name, that would allow Osama Bin Laden himself to board a plane under the pseudonym Chuck Finley. You know, theoretically, and if he wasn't dead.
#22
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I'm sure the orders to take these lesser documents came down from on high and filtered down through DHS and TSA.
Apparently these highly placed individuals didn't get the memo that "ID MATTERS".
Apparently these highly placed individuals didn't get the memo that "ID MATTERS".
#23
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 962
If you want to know about TSA's policies around ID, and how they check people who don't have ID:
1. papersplease.com
2. Google "IVCC SOP", eg TSA identity verification call center SOP
1. papersplease.com
2. Google "IVCC SOP", eg TSA identity verification call center SOP
#24
Join Date: Sep 2008
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You mean the "chance" the screener finds the person attractive?
#25
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Because ID is really for the airlines, not security (as you probably already know). The ID cross check with boarding passes makes tickets non-transferable, which lets airlines sell tickets at different prices at different times. Actual security just requires screening to keep weapons off planes (not that the TSA is particularly good at that, either).
#26
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Back before this RealID stuff, my state allowed driver license renewals by mail. What they wanted was the $$$, it is a revenue thing. I renewed my DL twice by mail, and they used the old original photo. By the time I had to get it replaced, the photo on my DL was pushing 20 years old. Yet it was considered a safe ID. Yes I kinda still looked like that poor quality old photo, but still. . .
#29
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Back before this RealID stuff, my state allowed driver license renewals by mail. What they wanted was the $$$, it is a revenue thing. I renewed my DL twice by mail, and they used the old original photo. By the time I had to get it replaced, the photo on my DL was pushing 20 years old. Yet it was considered a safe ID. Yes I kinda still looked like that poor quality old photo, but still. . .
#30
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Because ID is really for the airlines, not security (as you probably already know). The ID cross check with boarding passes makes tickets non-transferable, which lets airlines sell tickets at different prices at different times. Actual security just requires screening to keep weapons off planes (not that the TSA is particularly good at that, either).
After 9/11, it was determined that only ticketed passengers should be allowed past the security checkpoint, for two reasons:
1) Reducing the number of people in the sterile area theoretically reduced the odds of Bad Actors getting through to a plane
2) Reducing the number of people being screened at security checkpoints eased the burden on the newly-created TSA, which shortened long security lines and allowed them to focus only on people who were actually getting on a plane
However, after that restriction was put into place, a number of incidents throughout the 2000s showed that it was ridiculously easy to pick up a discarded boarding pass and gain entry to the sterile area using someone else's ticket. In fact, one person was apprehended with numerous BPs in his backpack, most from flights that had already departed, many from previous days - they got him into the sterile area, because TSA was lax in checking the dates and times on the BP to determine its validity. The BPs were also in other peoples' names, leading to the question, "How can TSA know whether that's really YOUR boarding pass?" And so, the requirement to show ID that matches the BP was born, not for revenue protection, but out of a vague, undefined sense of fear that someone traveling under an assumed name is "up to no good" and poses some sort of threat to aviation security. Coupled with the outlandish notion that showing ID somehow roots out terrorists and criminals (as if they all have the word Terrorist stamped on their IDs or something), this convinced the general public that ID requirements were a genuine security measure.
The holes in the logical arguments are clear, starting with the fact that it's so easy to obtain falsified documents and use them to obtain genuine IDs under false names, and leading up to the realization that even if you travel under an assumed name with false ID, you still have to undergo exactly the same security screening as everybody else, making the ID requirement absolutely useless anyway.
The airlines never protested the ID requirements, because they do derive a benefit from it. But they're not the drivers behind it, and don't deserve the blame. The blame rests in two places - the flim-flam men at TSA who constantly repeat the false mantra that "ID Matters!", and the general public, for being gullible and paranoid enough to actually buy the lie. But I'm not going to lay this one at the feet of the airlines.