4/28/20
By Tom Cartwright
DEATH FLIGHTS – 28 APRIL 2020
20 FLIGHTS
Ø Today we saw an amazing amount of churning of flights within the US and presumably detainees. Since ICE does not disclose the number of prisoners on their flights we are left to our educated guesses. When we see 3 and 4 legs of flights by the same plane there really is no explanation other than they are moving people around.
- Today we saw 1 plane fly 5 legs, and 3 planes fly 4 legs all within the US.
- Even the deportation flight to El Salvador made 2 legs in the US.
Ø Despite the swirl of intranational flights, there was only 1 deportation flight – to El Salvador with prisoners likely from San Antonio and Houston.
Ø We are not sure why there were so few deportation flights and so many flights within the US. I wonder if it is related to the pressure mounting on our exporting of COVID combined with the new testing protocols to be implemented. As a reminder, ICE announced they would begin random testing of detainees to reassure receiving countries that COVID cases will stay in the US system.
- Are they trying to move people in the US to control the spread? Are they holding off deportation flights until they have the testing protocols in place? If so, will we see a large number soon? We don’t know, but the coming days will be quite interesting to witness. And we will.
Ø We do know that COVID in the detainee population is spreading and that testing is still minimal. Ice released tonight that they have tested 705 (up only 280 from a week ago), and of those 425 have been positive. That is 60%!
- Still curious that only 35 staff are reported positive. A number that has not changed much at all over the past week. It just can’t be right. Why?
Ø Guatemala now reports 103 deportees have tested positive. They are only reporting about 530 cases in the entire country so ICE contributed 20% of their total cases. And 7% of all deportees by air have had COVID.
- Guatemala continues their suspension of deportation flights despite pressure from the US.
Ø Despite our proven exportation of COVID to Guatemala, it is interesting that Guatemala was absent from Trump’s voicing of support for ventilators a few days ago for other Central American countries.
- “Just spoke to President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador,” Trump tweeted. “Will be helping them with Ventilators, which are desperately needed. They have worked well with us on immigration at the Southern Border!”
About an hour later, Trump added:
- “Just spoke to President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the Republic of Honduras. We work closely together on the Southern Border. Will be helping him with his request for Ventilators and Testing.”
Ø We also wonder how much we have exported to El Salvador and Honduras. It would be unreasonable to assume it is any less that Guatemala. Even though nothing has been reported.
Ø Tomorrow ICE will most likely release the number of total detainees. The last two weeks it was dropped about 1,500 in each week. We will report the new number if it is released tomorrow.
Here are the 20 flights for today. The number following the flights indicates an individual plane.
- PHOENIX to YAKIMA (WA) – 1
- YAKIMA (WA) to LAS VEGAS -1
- LAS VEGAS to EL PASO -1
- EL PASO to PHOENIX -1
- PHOENIX to SAN DIEGO – 2
- SAN DIEGO to SO CALIFORNIA – 2
- SO CALIFORNIA to DENVER – 2
- DENVER to EL PASO – 2
- EL PASO to PHOENIX - 2
- SAN ANTONIO to HOUSTON - 3
- HOUSTON to EL SALVADOR - 3
- EL SALVADOR to SAN ANTONIO – 3
- BROWNSVILLE to TOLEDO – 4
- TOLEDO to RICHMOND – 4
- RICHMOND to ALEXANDRIA (LA) - 4
- ALEXANDRIA (LA) to BROWNSVILLE – 4
- ALEXANDRIA (LA) to PORTSMOUTH - 5
- PORTMOUTH to NEWARK - 5
- NEWARK to LAREDO -5
- LAREDO to ALEXANDRIA (LA)
Note: ICE Air does not disclose their flights. Flight listing gleaned from public flight information, knowledge of detention center locations, air charter services and historic patterns. In rare cases, there may be a flight we miss, or include in error.