Hidden in Plain Sight: ICE Air and the Machinery of Mass Deportation

From the University of Washington Center for Human Rights’ (UWCHR) website:

ICE Air Operations is the international network of for-profit, privately chartered deportation flights run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In late 2018, at the request of community research partners interested in learning more about deportation flights via King County International Airport (Boeing Field), UWCHR submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for records regarding ICE Air locally and nationwide.

These records, and additional research supported by a Jackson School of International Studies student-led Task Force, led to an April 2019 report series, “Hidden in Plain Sight: ICE Air and the Machinery of Mass Deportation”, documenting the national ICE Air network and its operations in King County. Following the release of this report and advocacy by UWCHR community research partners, King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an order expressing the intention to renegotiate airport leases to stop such flights. Soon after, the companies which support flights at Boeing Field voluntarily committed not to service flights involving immigration detainees.

In May 2019, regular ICE Air deportation flights began at Yakima Air Terminal/McAllister Field in Eastern Washington. UWCHR continues to research topics related to ICE Air in support of organizations and community groups monitoring deportation flights nationwide.

UWCHR, 24 hours media and I formed a partnership to craft a video that would explain the clandestine network that is ICE Air, while drawing vital attention to its profit-driven and abuse-ridden, unaccountable network of immigrant detention and transportation.

Follow their work and continue your research on ICE Air activities at their website Hidden in Plain Sight: ICE and the Machinery of Mass Deportation.

Visit the UWCHR’s website to stay abreast of their crucial human rights research in Washington State or abroad, or support their work, including scholarships to students working directly on human rights.

Project partners: University of Washington Center for Human Rights, La Resistencia, Yakima Immigrant Response Network
Roles: Project Coordinator, Producer, Interviewer, Videographer, co-Editor, Graphic Designer, Script Writer
Collaborators: Wadii Boughdir, Jason Solis, Alejandra Maria Puerto