Federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement who recently rounded up some 32 illegal immigrants throughout New England will put them on an airplane for a one-way flight on ‘ICE Air.’
‘We call it ICE Air, similar to “Con Air”,’ an immigration official told the Boston Herald.
Con Air is a reference to the 1997 blockbuster film in which Nicolas Cage portrays a felon on parole who tries to stop inmates from hijacking a prison transport flight in mid-air.
Immigration officials say ‘Operation Crosscheck’, a five-day dragnet conducted in May, was aimed at deporting illegal aliens who have already been ordered out of the country.
The would-be deportees are usually flown out of Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The image above shows Guatemalan men walk from a deportation flight chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the aircraft landed in Guatemala City on May 30, 2019
Guatemalan men are seen deplaning from the ICE Air flight in Guatemala City on May 30
The planes usually take the detainees to ICE Air hubs in Louisiana and Texas. From there, they are flown to Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and beyond.
In some cases, ICE officials buy plane tickets on commercial flights for an agent to accompany a deportee to far-flung places like Iraq, Germany, and Israel.
ICE officials said that of the 32 suspects caught in the New England dragnet, 27 of them have been convicted of crimes, including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, identity theft, credit card fraud, and unlawful possession of a firearm.
ICE Air Operations transports detained immigrants between American cities and, for those with final removal orders, back to their home countries.
About 100,000 people a year are deported on such flights.
ICE Air, an obscure division of the controversial federal agency, operates hundreds of flights each year to remove immigrants.
Deportation flights are big business: The U.S. government has spent approximately $1billion on them in the last decade, and the Trump administration is seeking to raise ICE's budget for charter flights by 30 per cent.
While Mexican immigrants are generally flown to southern U.S. cities and then driven to the border so they can cross over, Central Americans have to be transported by air.
And the large numbers of Mexicans who used to cross the border have largely been replaced by migrants from three impoverished Central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
According to flight-tracking data, deportation flights to Guatemala and Honduras sharply increased in 2018.
And ICE's budget request for charter flights increased 30 per cent in 2017 compared to 2016.
The flights carry some 100,000 illegal immigrants per year. Before boarding, they are shackled by their wrists and feet. The above image shows shackled undocumented migrants on an ICE charter flight in Mesa, Arizona on October 15, 2015
The agency estimated two years ago that it spends about $7,785 per hour on the flights.
ICE shifted to chartering private planes about a decade ago after previously using a government service with the U.S. Marshals.
The agency says moving to private flights saves about $25million a year and gave it more flexibility.
Charter flights also avoid putting large numbers of deported immigrants on commercial planes, which requires buying tickets for deportation officers accompanying them, or holding them in the U.S. for longer than necessary and tying up space in detention centers.
ICE operates flights to and from 24 domestic destinations and origins as
