The month before Sunday saw a more than twofold increase in flights from airports in the Los Angeles area linked to deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This month, ICE stepped up its operations in the area, carrying out several raids, including one in the Fashion District on June 6. According to the White House, 330 people have been arrested as a result of the raids as of June 11; some of them were transported by air. Few details about the inmates have been made public by ICE.
For security concerns, ICE does not disclose information about upcoming flights, a representative told The Times. According to the spokesperson’s email, ICE field offices work with ICE Air Operations, which has its headquarters in Mesa, Arizona, to plan removal trips and domestic transfers. Both commercial airlines and ICE Air charter aircraft are used for these operations.
Tom Cartwright, a volunteer immigration advocate at Witness at the Border who keeps track of ICE flights, gathered public flight data that The Times examined and analyzed. Over the course of five years, Cartwright has used publicly accessible plane characteristics and flight patterns to trace about 36,000 ICE flights.
The Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, which is close to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, has been the origin of about 70% of deportation-related aircraft leaving the Los Angeles area since the June raids started. Charter airlines are permitted to conduct nonscheduled private flights out of Victorville’s public airport. Victorville spokesperson Sue Jones told The Times that the city is unable to verify ICE-related activity as flight information are not monitored.
Additionally, there have been reports of aircraft leaving the Los Angeles region from other airports, such as Bakersfield’s Meadows Field and Burbank International.
Since June 6, 25% of the aircraft have flown straight to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, which is nearby. The Mexican Consulate told The Times that some of the planes seized in Los Angeles are being held in El Paso, where around 5% of flights go.
ICE Air Operations largely operates from Miami, Alexandria, Louisiana, as well as San Antonio and Brownsville, Texas, in addition to its headquarters.
Charter aircraft operating ICE-related flights are permitted to make several stops or transfers within and outside of the United States in a single day. However, publicly accessible data cannot be used to follow the passengers’ journeys when they board and disembark.
According to the most recent report from Witness at the Border, ICE has performed 685 deportation stops to over 30 foreign locations overall between January 1 and May. It’s about the same as it was this time last year. ICE told The Times that it frequently sends deportees on special, high-risk flights to Central American nations including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, as well as other countries worldwide.
California
ICE and CoreCivic have reached an agreement for CoreCivic to turn its California City facility into a federal detention center for immigrants.
Some of the aircraft that passed through Victorville eventually stopped at airports in places like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Harlingen, Texas. San Juan, Puerto Rico; San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Tapachula, Mexico; Guatemala City; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic are additional locations outside of the continental United States.