5/4/20
By Tom Cartwright
DEATH FLIGHTS – 4 May 2020
22 FLIGHTS - 5 DEPORTATION FLIGHTS
Ø Today was a breathtakingly busy day. We can only imagine how much COVID was seeded and spread by ICE Air today given the number of flights and geographies covered. To put today into perspective, today there were 5 deportation flights and all of last week there were 6. Today there were 22 flights, last week there were 59 for the full week. The next few days will be interesting.
Ø 7 ICE Air planes were in the air today and there were 5 deportation flights, the most in one day in about month. Deportations to Honduras (2), Ecuador, and Columbia, and Guatemala.
Ø It’s not clear why there were so may deportation flights today. There is a lot of pressure building from inside and outside of the detention centers because of the immense and mounting danger of COVID spread. In this case it is likely that the both staff and the prisoners are frightened of illness and the bosses are probably frightened of presiding over a disaster. Activists and lawyers are ramping up pressure as well for release. Could they be trying to deport as many as possible now so they are not forced by courts and public opinion to release anyone?
Ø Guatemala today said that in spite of their “official” suspension they would accept 3 flights this week. The stipulations are that they would be 75 people or less and that ALL would be tested and have their medical paperwork with them that states that they are COVID free. These flights will include unaccompanied children. Today, they accepted the first one.
Ø The number of ICE detainees tested increased by 212 to 1,285, but those positive also increased by 84 to 606. So, 47% of those tested have been positive. Considering Guatemala is requiring testing and that 3 planes will go this week it could be that is absorbing a good portion of the testing capacity. We’ll watch. If there are 60 people on a plane and the positive percent is 50% that means they will absorb about 350 tests.
Here are the flights for today. The number behind the leg indicates a single individual planes path.
- GREENSBORO to CINCINNATI - 1
- CINCINNATI to TULSA - 1
- SAN ANTONIO to ALEXANDRIA – 2
- ALEXANDRIA to HONDURAS – 2
- HONDURAS to SAN ANTONIO – 2
- ALEXANDRIA to HARLINGEN (TX) - 3
- HARLINGEN to ECUADOR – 3
- ECUADOR to ALEXANDRIA - 3
- MIAMI – COLUMBUS (GA) – 4
- COLUMBUS (GA) to HOUSTON – 4
- HOUSTON to HONDURAS – 4
- HONDURAS to MIAMI – 4
- ALEXANDRIA to BOWNSVILLE – 5
- BROWNSVILLE to BOGATA – 5
- BOGATA to ALEXANDRIA – 5
- SAN ANTONIO to HARRISBURG – 6
- HARRISBURG to ALEXANDRIA – 6
- ALEXANDRIA to BROWNSVILLE – 6
- BROWNSVILLE to SAN ANTONIO – 6
- BROWNSVILLE to HOUSTON – 7
- HOUSTON to GUATEMALA - 7
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.