Doubling down on the TSA’s illegal scanning of domestic airline reservations for immigration enforcement —  first reported here and later confirmed by the New York Times — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to station its agents on jetbridges to question and “check documents” of travelers boarding flights at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport  (MSP), according to a memo to airport workers leaked by a whistleblower.

Like almost all US airports with scheduled passenger service, MSP is publicly owned and operated. The Metropolitan Airports Commission is governed by a regional board whose members are appointed by the Governor of Minnesota.

The next meeting of the Board of Commissioners is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, January 20, 2026, at 1 p.m. in Room LT-3048A, Terminal 1, MSP Airport.

Minnesotans and others who travel through MSP (it’s a Delta Air Lines hub for flights to and from other places throughout the US) should show up and demand that the Board kick ICE out of all areas of MSP except the customs and immigration inspection areas for arriving international passengers. The airport could also post signs at terminal entrances and jetbridges advising US citizens that they don’t have to show papers or answer questions.

The airports commission and the state of Minnesota have a compelling financial interest in keeping ICE from harassing or kidnapping passengers changing planes at MSP, so that transit passengers won’t start avoiding routes via MSP in favor of other airline hubs.

A Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman told Fox 9 News that , “Federal regulations provide federal agents with broad access to MSP Airport property. This includes access to … pre- and post-security areas in the terminals.”

We can find no such Federal regulation, nor would there be a statutory basis for one. MSP and other airports are under no obligation to consent to ICE agents’ presence on jetbridges for arriving or departing domestic flights, unless they have a warrant, issued by a judge based on probable cause, to search a specific location. MSP can and should revoke any agreement it has entered into with ICE by which it consented to such an ICE presence.

It’s unclear what authority ICE would claim for access to most airport property without consent of the property owner — the airports commission — or for detention of US citizens who stand mute in response to their questions or requests to show their papers.

MSP is a major international airport, and international customs and immigration inspection areas at airports are considered “ports of entry” and the functional and legal equivalent of border crossings. But we know of no court that has applied this doctrine to boarding gates, jetbridges, or passengers on domestic flights between points within the US.

The Twin Cities are more than 100 miles from any international border, so the rest of the airport or the metropolitan region isn’t subject to the claimed border-area exception allowing domestic immigration checkpoints.

Even if boarding areas or jetbridges for domestic flights at airports that handle international flights were held to fall within that exception, case law on border-area immigration checkpoints is clear: U.S. citizens that  do not need to have, carry, or show any documents or answer any questions. They must be allowed to proceed after only a “brief” delay unless there is probable cause  to believe that they aren’t US citizens. Not showing ID is not probable cause, nor is not answering questions about citizenship or anything else.

The Constitutional rules for stops, searches, or questioning by ICE or any other law enforcement officers on jetbridges are, so far as we can tell, the same as those for pedestrians or passengers in cars (other than drivers) on public rights-of-way:

1. Police need reasonable articulable individualized suspicion of a violation of the law to stop you at all, even briefly. To protect your rights, ask them, on camera, as soon as they stop you, “What is the reason you are detaining me?”
2. You don’t have to show any papers.
3. You have the right to remain silent.
4. You may not be arrested merely for failure or refusal to have or show ID.
5. You may not be arrested or detained more than “briefly” without individualized probable cause to believe that you have committed a specific crime.
6. You have the right to film and record the police.

To protect yourself against wrongful arrest based on automated facial misrecognition, keep your mask on as much as possible, especially at boarding gates and on jetbridges.

If you are prevented from boarding a domestic flight at MSP or any other airport because you decline to show papers or answer questions from ICE or other Federal agents, please get in touch.