Immigrant airport workers, union sue after Trump administration revokes clearances

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, March 13 (Reuters) - One of the largest U.S. labor unions filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging a decision by President Donald Trump's administration to revoke security clearances for at least 80 noncitizen workers at airports nationwide.

The Service Employees International Union sued in Boston federal court alongside four immigrant workers who lost their jobs at Logan International Airport after U.S. Customs and Border Protection last month stripped them of their clearances.

The union's lawyers said that for four decades, immigrant workers with lawful status work authorization and CBP-granted security access were allowed to perform services at airports, such as cleaning airplane cabins and handling luggage.

Since 1986, such airport workers have been required to display a CBP-approved customs seal to gain unescorted access to secure customs areas at international airports.

Historically, workers just needed to provide proof of work authorization to their employers, who would then conduct background checks.

But the lawsuit said that abruptly came to an end in February, when CBP, after altering its interpretation of long-standing employment eligibility standards, revoked customs seals en masse for immigrant workers to advance Trump's "zealous anti-immigrant agenda under the pretext of airport security."

The lawsuit said workers had lost their clearances at numerous other airports including San Francisco International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and Orlando International Airport in Florida.

Among the employees whose seals were revoked were green card applicants, Temporary Protected Status holders and asylum seekers, all of whom possessed valid work authorization, the lawsuit said.

"In their haste to make life in the United States intolerable for even lawful immigrant workers by depriving them of their livelihoods, Defendants have acted arbitrarily and capriciously, failed to comply with CBP’s own rules, and violated workers' due process rights," the lawsuit said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, for years, work authorization sufficed to satisfy requirements in CBP regulations that workers seeking clearance submit proof of "citizenship or authorized residency."

But the lawsuit said that CBP has narrowed the definition of "authorized residency," to mean only people with certain immigration statuses, such as U.S. citizens' lawful permanent residents and people admitted as refugees.

The case is Service Employees International Union v. Scott, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 1:26-cv-11251.

For SEIU: Michael J. Wishnie of Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School