Reports from UWCHR’s ongoing research into ICE Air Operations, the international network of for-profit, privately chartered deportation flights run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In February the Department of Justice sued King County, WA to reopen Boeing Field in Seattle for deportation flights. Later that week, the UWCHR released a video explainer, produced by UW students and alumni, giving background on the ICE Air deportation flight network.
The advent of regular ICE Air deportation and detainee transfer flights via Yakima Air Terminal-McAllister Field has deepened Yakima’s role in immigration enforcement in the Pacific Northwest, but the flights build on prior infrastructure centered on the pipeline between Yakima County jail and the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
A newly-released Department of Homeland Security document reveals allegations of serious abuses on ICE deportation flights, including accounts of mistreatment, excessive force, due process violations, and deaths.
A database of ICE Air’s deportation flights reveals records of more than 34,400 passengers picked up by ICE at Boeing Field in King County, Washington.
Each year, “ICE Air” removes tens of thousands of people from the US via a network of private charter flights. The UW Center for Human Rights is making public an ICE database regarding these flights and documenting the corporations and municipalities participating in ICE’s deportation flights.