Patience Gore and her husband Olaoluwa Omotosho had already cleared check-in and security at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport without a hitch when a United Airlines gate agent called her name over the terminal intercom, asking her to come check her boarding pass. Within moments, ICE agents were telling her she had to come with them. Gore and Omotosho are now suing United Airlines for negligence and false imprisonment, claiming the airline set her up for a federal arrest that cost her a shot at having another biological child.
The lawsuit, filed as Gore et al v. United Airlines Incorporated in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and assigned to Judge Diane J. Humetewa, lays out the events of March 15, 2026, at Terminal 3. According to the complaint as reported by Phoenix New Times, Gore, a 44-year-old Zimbabwean woman who has lived in the U.S. for about 24 years, and Omotosho, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen from Maryland, passed through security together before the gate agent's page separated them. United employees did not intervene as ICE agents made the arrest, and the lawsuit alleges the near-simultaneous timing of the intercom call and the agents' arrival supports an inference that the encounter was anticipated.
Gore's attorneys argue the airline's gate agent called her to the counter knowing ICE would seize her there, an allegation drawn directly from the lawsuit itself. ICE agents told Omotosho they had a warrant for Gore's arrest and a removal order, but the warrant they showed him was not signed by a judge, according to the complaint. Gore and Omotosho, who married in August 2025, claim the incident caused more than $75,000 in damages.
A 2011 Order That Should Have Protected Her
Gore had legal status and no criminal record at the time of her arrest, and she was complying with required ICE check-ins. She held a 2011 withholding of removal order issued by an immigration judge in Omaha, Nebraska, which is a statutory protection that, per the U.S. Department of Justice, bars the government from deporting someone to a specific country where their life or freedom would be threatened, though it does not grant permanent legal status or block removal to a willing third country. That order protected Gore from deportation to Zimbabwe, and ICE had not identified any concrete third-party country for her lawful removal, according to the lawsuit.
Gore has sole legal custody of her 11-year-old American citizen daughter and has worked at USAA for 12 years. At the time of her arrest, she was in the middle of a time-sensitive IVF protocol requiring precise hormone administration and frequent monitoring. Omotosho told Phoenix New Times that her detention interrupted time-sensitive IVF treatment and threatened what he called an irreplaceable opportunity to have biological children.
Two Weeks In Three Facilities
ICE detained Gore across three separate Arizona facilities over two weeks in March 2026, moving her through the ICE Phoenix field office before transferring her to the Florence Correctional Center and the Eloy Detention Center. Both Florence and Eloy are private facilities run by CoreCivic under contract with ICE, and Eloy alone holds nearly 1,600 beds and has drawn scrutiny over detainee conditions in the past, according to CoreCivic's own facility records. Gore says she was denied clean clothes, undergarments, privacy, sunglasses, and medical care, and was forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor and use an exposed toilet, with meals scheduled for 4 a.m., 11 a.m., and 4 p.m.
Her attorney, Edward Wea Neufville III, filed a humanitarian parole request and a compassionate release motion on March 19, 2026, but ICE did not respond to the parole request, per the lawsuit. Gore was ultimately released after her lawyer filed an uncontested habeas petition, which U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich granted on March 26, 2026; the Department of Homeland Security did not oppose the release request, and Gore walked free the following day.
By the time Gore was released, the delay had already cost her. Her prepared IVF cycle was abandoned during detention, disrupting a process her doctor called her only realistic remaining chance to have a biological child, according to the complaint. She had two viable embryos from a prior cycle and resumed fertility treatment after her release, but the resumed cycle produced no viable embryo.
TSA Data Feeding Airport Arrests Nationwide
Gore's arrest didn't happen in isolation. Under federal law, commercial airlines like United are required to submit passenger names, birth dates and gender to the Department of Homeland Security before domestic flights depart, a mandate that traces back to the 2008 Secure Flight Final Rule published in the Federal Register. A May 2025 information-sharing agreement between TSA and ICE, revealed through FOIA litigation by watchdog American Oversight, has TSA routinely forwarding those manifests to ICE multiple times a week for cross-referencing against immigration databases, as detailed by Forbes. Internal ICE data reviewed by Reuters in April 2026 found TSA had supplied records on more than 31,000 travelers between January 2025 and February 2026, leading directly to over 800 arrests.
That data pipeline has powered a broader surge in airport enforcement. ICE's operations accelerated through 2026 to the point where federal agents were executing up to 36 daily arrests nationwide at ticket counters, security lines and departure gates, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and relayed by The Guardian, part of a federal push seeking roughly 2,000 to 3,000 daily immigration arrests across all enforcement sectors. Six immigration attorneys interviewed by the Washington Post in July 2026 said the enforcement had expanded beyond people with final removal orders to include foreign nationals who overstayed visas or had pending applications for relief still working through the system.
Airline workers have started pushing back against their role in these encounters. Flight attendant unions have in several instances declined to assist federal agents during gate arrests, citing safety risks and boarding disruptions, according to the same Guardian report. That friction has spilled into Congress, where Representative Rashida Tlaib and more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers introduced the No TSA Data for ICE Act on August 5, 2026, seeking to bar TSA from sharing personally identifiable traveler data with ICE or Customs and Border Protection, according to FedScoop. The bill would also block DHS from using AI facial recognition tools or trusted traveler programs like TSA PreCheck for immigration arrests.
Sky Harbor's Growing Role
Sky Harbor spokesperson Gregory Roybal has said the airport is not notified of federal law enforcement activities and that federal agencies can legally conduct enforcement operations at U.S. airports. About a week after Gore's arrest, the Trump administration deployed dozens of additional agents to Sky Harbor, according to the lawsuit. Third Country Deportation Watch reported in May 2026 that the administration had deported more than 22,000 immigrants to at least 26 third-party countries since January 20, 2025, under agreements the administration has struck to enable such removals.
Gore's case follows a string of similar incidents Hoodline has tracked at airports around the country, including a jetway removal in Denver and the detention of a Sunnyvale woman at the Buffalo airport before she was sent to a Louisiana facility. United Airlines did not respond to Phoenix New Times' request for comment, and ICE did not respond to the outlet's questions. Gore declined to comment on the case.
