U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims that it has removed a total of 87 crew members from cruise ships at the Port of Boston since August and quickly deported them as part of the ongoing “Operation Tidal Wave” program. CBP issued a press release on Friday stating that the U.S. federal program targeted only “alien” (i.e., non-U.S.) crew members for possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and child sexual exploitation material (CSEM).

The federal agency previously reported that it deported 24 crew members from the port in Boston since mid-August. The new press release more than triples that number, with the agency touting a total of 87 foreign crew members being deported in what it has described as a “milestone.”

September 20: Six Crew Members Removed from Norwegian Breakaway

The only new disclosure about specific deportations in the latest press release was that on September 20, CBP officers removed six additional crew members, all Filipinos, from the Norwegian Breakaway. CBP agents previously raided the Norwegian Breakaway earlier in August.

The press release states that “during secondary interviews at Boston Logan International Airport, all six subjects admitted to previously possessing CSEM/CSAM.”

CBP agents also raided the Norwegian Escape on August 31 and the press release similarly states that every single one of the 10 crew members it deported allegedly admitted to CSAM violations.

I am skeptical that all of the last 16 deported crew members supposedly admitted to such conduct, particularly without legal representation or the requirement that the federal government file a probable cause affidavit. Why would a crew member who has already been removed from a cruise line admit to such conduct at an interview as he is leaving the U.S. at the airport?

It is highly unusual for 100% of suspects across multiple operations on different dates to immediately confess to severe federal crimes, especially during routine screenings.

Norwegian Breakaway

Missing Details from Deportations

The conclusory press release reveals that CBP in Boston has officially published vessel names and deportation timelines for only 27 of the affected 87 crew members. That leaves 60 crew members for whom CBP has explicitly declined to identify the specific ships involved or provide individual removal dates, grouping them entirely into a cumulative data total.

According to the official CBP National and Local Media Releases, the specific disclosures provided by the agency regarding deported crew members in Boston are restricted to the following operations:

August 2026: CBP agents deported 11 crew members from the Volendam (HAL) and Norwegian Breakaway (NCL). CBP and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) boarded the ships on August 14-16 during a weekend operation and apprehended 11 crew members, including nine citizens of the Philippines and one each from Indonesia and Nicaragua. The agency announced on August 20, 2026, that the individuals were turned over to shipping agents to be scheduled for rapid deportation flights out of the country.

The agency later announced on September 3, that 14 crew members were removed from the Volendam, Norwegian Breakaway, and Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas. The three additional crew members were presumably removed from the Vision of the Seas, but CBP does not clarify this or when they occurred.

August 31, 2026: CBP agents deported 10 crew members from the Norwegian Escape. CBP intercepted nine citizens of the Philippines and one citizen of Nepal aboard the vessel. All 10 allegedly admitted to possessing or consuming CSAM/CSEM during secondary border interviews. CBP issued a regional release on September 3, 2026, stating the removals were executed on August 31, with the individuals immediately fast-tracked for deportation under visa revocations.

September 20, 2026: CBP agents deported 6 crew members from the Norwegian Breakaway, all of whom were citizens of the Philippines. These deportations took place on Sunday, September 20, 2026, and CBP published a release on Friday, September 25, 2026.

CBP omitted any mention of the details of 60 other crew members. It refused to mention how many crew members were abducted or from what cruise ships. We previously reported that on September 3 and 4, CBP agents in Boston deported five crew members from the Viking Mars. CBP has never acknowledged this ship or date in any release. We reported the exclusive details about the raid and deportations based on information from one of the abducted crew members’ families.

This means CBP’s conclusory data indicates that a total of 60 crew members were quietly processed in Boston and deported since mid-August. The agency has provided zero public records detailing which cruise ships they worked on, what dates they were abducted, or when their deportation flights departed Boston.

Criticism of the Deportations

By relying on aggregated after-the-fact conclusory totals and undisclosed details about the deportations, CBP has rightfully drawn heavy criticism from crew advocates and some sources in the media. It appears at a minimum that CBP is targeting and summarily rounding up crew members without affording them basic legal rights and procedures.

Some of the deported crew members have come forward and say they were framed and that the accusations against them are false. Read: Filipino Seafarers Claimed They Were ‘Framed,’ Deported Due to Alleged Child Pornography

In Little Recourse for Cruise Line Crew Removed by CBP, Legal Experts Say, Georgetown Law faculty member Sophia Genovese said she is suspicious of the enforcement actions and that authorities do not appear to be investigating the allegations or identifying potential victims, the standard approach for such cases.

She states, “I think that invoking something so abhorrent, like child pornography and child sex crimes, may be cover for the department to avoid scrutiny over the situation, to try and manipulate the situation so there isn’t much pushback.”

As I previously reported, there have been a number of cases in which U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials made entirely false claims about people’s criminality.

For example, over the past year federal agents shot three U.S. citizens (Marimar Martinez, Renée Nicole Macklin Good, and Alex Jeffrey Pretti) a total of eighteen times, killing Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti. Homeland Security officials then lied about the crimes they allegedly committed, and defamed and falsely accused the victims of being “domestic terrorists” among other false and derogatory statements about their deaths that were subsequently proven to be clearly contradicted by video evidence.

If U.S. federal immigration agents can murder U.S. citizens on the streets of America and thereafter lie and escape all accountability, it fits a pattern that CBP may well lie about all “foreign” crew members’ allegedly “admitting” to such egregious conduct (which is statistically improbable) assuming there is actually any evidence of wrongdoing in the first place.

Bypassing Due Process

CBP’s act of silently abducting 60 of the last 87 crew members it deported represents a complete breakdown of constitutional protections:

  • The “Border” Loophole: Because crew members are technically on conditional landing visas, they are legally treated as if they are standing at a border gate, not on U.S. soil.
  • “Anything Goes” Approach: CBP completely omitted disclosing immigration raids on cruise ships (like the Viking Mars) where 60 of the 87 crew members lived and worked. Omitting details such as the name of the cruise ships and the dates of the raids fuels the perception that CBP and other federal agencies are running a shadow system—operating outside the checks, balances, and public oversight of the U.S. court system.

Denying Justice and Accountability

Paradoxically, if the crew members really viewed CSAM, the aggressive CBP tactics of denying legal representation and court scrutiny and simply deporting them from the U.S. results in letting dangerous sex offenders off too easily. They are simply rounded up and thrown back to the Philippines or other home country.

  • No Prison Time: By treating CSAM possession as a simple visa violation, individuals caught with horrific child pornography material face zero U.S. prison time.
  • Shifting the Burden: Deporting these individuals simply passes the problem to their home countries, where local authorities may lack the resources, evidence, or jurisdiction to monitor or prosecute them.
  • Shielding Corporate Liability: Keeping 60 deportations “unlisted” means the public never learns which specific multi-billion-dollar cruise lines have security vulnerabilities on their networks.

By prioritizing rapid, quiet deportations over transparent public trials, CBP achieves its immediate goal of clearing suspects from U.S. ports. However, it does so at the cost of public transparency—leaving the agency open to the criticism that it is operating a sweeping administrative dragnet with very little legal accountability.

CBP’s latest press release reveals that not a single crew member was arrested, imprisoned, and prosecuted for viewing or distributing CSAM. In my view, this reflects that CBP is not genuinely interested in obtaining justice for minors or holding pedophiles and pornographers responsible for their crimes.

Lack of Transparency at Other U.S. Ports

Although the September 25 press release was limited to CBP’s actions at the port of Boston, CBP has shown a lack of transparency while deporting “foreign” crew members at other U.S. ports. CBP stormed the Disney Magic in San Diego late in April of 2026, detaining 10 crew members, most of whom were led from the Disney cruise ship with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

The raid on the Disney ship became widely reported only after a Disney cruise passenger, Dharmi Mehta, who was disembarking the ship with her family, said she was stunned to see the ship’s head waiter led away while shackled. Ms. Mehta recorded the spectacle of Disney ship employees still wearing Disney uniforms on the dock in San Diego as they were manhandled by armed CBP agents into white vans. This raid was part of larger efforts to target “foreign” crew members and deport them from U.S. ports. CBP initially issued no press release(s) about its abduction of these crew members.

CBP agents hauling Disney crew members into immigration vans (Dharmi Mehta)

The Disney operation in San Diego went unexplained for nearly two weeks. Local immigrant rights activists held a news conference in San Diego “calling on CBP to release more information, including the names of the individuals detained, the reasons for their arrest and their current whereabouts.”

DHS did not identify any of the ships it raided, nor did it identify any of the crew members or describe any of the CSAM these crew members allegedly viewed.

Several news outlets eventually reported that the raided cruise ships included two Disney ships (Disney Magic and Disney Wonder) and the MS Zaandam, operated by Holland America Line. Media reports finally learned that this was part of a large immigration sweep which netted 25 crew members from the Philippines, and one each from Portugal and Indonesia.

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Image credit: Port of Boston – Doc Searls – CC0 commons / wikimedia; NCL’s Norwegian Breakaway – Master0Garfield – CC0 commons / wikipedia; screenshot of video of CBP hauling Disney crew members into immigration vans – Dharmi Mehta