Still hiding from the pandemic, we watch deportation flights, venture timidly out to the streets, some of us, to join in the uprising against systemic racism. My weather app still sounds alerts every time there are storms encroaching on Brownsville, Texas, a few steps across the bridge over the bloody Rio Grande, on the opposite bank, where those storms pour rain onto the clay-rich mud and flood the tents of the people we left behind, in a ragged, fenced camp in Matamoros, Mexico.

DEATH FLIGHTS –ICE AIR CONTINUES TO SEED AND SPREAD OF COVID TO OTHER COUNTRIES AND IN DETENTION CENTERS.

WEEKLY SUMMARY – Friday 19 June, for the week of 15 June 2020

79 Flights this week. Down from the huge 92 last week, and still a bit over the last 8 week average of 75. But, deportation flights were almost the same as last week.

On the subject of the comments period open for response to newly proposed asylum rules...

Here is my comment. It starts further back, it steps us away from the framework we are being asked to work with. My comment asks: by what right do we tell people that the river makes a line that they cannot cross on their journey to a better life. By what just principle do we defend this line with massive military might?

DEATH FLIGHTS – THERE WAS NO SLOWING DOWN IN THE SEEDING AND SPREAD OF COVID

WEEKLY SUMMARY – Friday 12 June, for the week of 8 June 2020

92 Flights this week. – MORE ICE AIR FLIGHTS THIS WEEK THAN IN 7 OF THE LAST 8 WEEKS. THE ONLY WEEK IN THE LAST 8 WITH MORE HAD 94 FLIGHTS.

Good lawyers, lawyers who are good people, fight the battle on the ground for more just treatment of supplicants who come to our borders and line up on the bridges over the rivers polluted with the bodies of the defeated. And there is special language that goes with the job, and that language forgivably hardens into the structure of the battle lines.

The power of bearing witness.

It may seem self-evident, but in the last days we have seen the seismic power of bearing witness. We have not seen the witness who kept her cell phone camera pointed at a man slowly dying under the pressure of oppression, the brutal poetry of watching a man stop breathing, his heart stopping, his voice stilled.

DEATH FLIGHTS – WEEKLY SUMMARY – Friday 5 June, for the week of 1 June 2020

73 Flights this week. Less than last week’s 90 driven by fewer deportation related flights with shuffle flights remaining about the same.

WEEKLY SUMMARY

- 73 Flights, 17 less than last week

- 11 Deportations – down 6 from last week

Life is a long journey. And the struggle, la lucha, is long. The trail taken by those who flee their devastated homes is long, and may not end anytime soon. The heavy slog from captivity to slavery to justice is long, and never over, it seems.

9 DEATH FLIGHTS – 3 June 2020

TODAY WAS A SLOWER DAY IN TOTAL FOLLOWING THE 29 FLIGHTS YESTERDAY, BUT STILL THERE WERE 2 DEPORTATION FLIGHTS.

- 2 DEPORTATIONS – HONDURAS (2)

- 2 DEPORTATION RETURNS

- 5 FLIGHTS SHUFFLING PEOPLE AROUND DETENTION CENTERS. YES, 20.

Witness at the Border Statement for the “Examining Best Practices for Incarceration and Detention During COVID-19” Hearing, Committee on the Judiciary, 6/2/20

DEATH FLIGHTS – 2 June 2020

TODAY WAS AN EXTREMELY BUSY DAY IN EVERY RESPECT. HOW MUCH COVID WAS SPREAD TODAY? NO REQUIRED TESTING BEFORE MOVES. UNAVOIDABLE!

- TUESDAYS ARE ALWAYS BUSY BECAUSE THERE ARE 4 REGULAR ROUTES ON TUESDAY – EVERY WEEK WITH 14-16 LEGS.

29 FLIGHTS TODAY – 9 PLANES IN THE AIR

DEATH FLIGHTS – 1 June 2020

IN 2020 ICE AIR HAS FLOWN OVER 2,000 FLIGHTS IN THE MIDST OF THE PANDEMIC WITH EACH STOP AND TRANSFER A TIME TO SEED AND SPREAD COVID IN THE WORLD AND THE US.

MAY RECAP and 2020 THROUGH MAY RECAP

Borders establish a line of force that prevent those with a righteous claim on the bounty of the earth from getting it away from those who hoard that bounty. Borders may be lines along rivers guarded by automatic weapons and gates, and they may be lines more deceptively enforced, like the ones that reach along the chains of slavery to the present, link after link weighing down a people.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 29 May 2020

PANDEMIC DEEPENS AROUND THE WORLD AND ICE AIR DEEPENS THE EXPORTATION OF COVID THIS WEEK – 21 FLIGHTS TODAY, AND 90 FOR THE WEEK.

TODAY WAS ANOTHER EXTREMELY BUSY DAY EXPORTING COVID WITH 7 DEPORTATIONS (1 late last night) .

NEW REPORT: ICE Air: 1,677 Flights While Covid-19 Rages (Jan-April 2020)

DEATH FLIGHTS – 28 May 2020

Another relatively slow day, 9 flights today – 2 Deportations Jamaica and Grenada, with 1 connection. 6 Shuffle flights in the US.

-As we watch for patterns, we note that Thursday is typically a slower day; only one regular route is flown. The route; Miami, FL (MIA) to Columbus, GA (CSG) to Alexandra, LA (AEX) to Brownsville, TX(BRO) to Miami, FL (MIA). This route is flown every Thursday, no variation and never skipped. Who are they moving and why? Avoiding a judges order in Miami? Spreading the coronavirus to Georgia, Louisiana and Texas?

DEATH FLIGHTS – 27 May 2020

A slower day, 10 flights today – 2 Deportations to Honduras, with 1 connection. 2 Deportation returns. 5 Shuffle flights in US.

-As we watch for patterns, we note that Wednesday is typically a slower day; only one regular route is flown. The route; Alexandria, LA (AEX) to Minneapolis, MN (MSP) to Omaha, NE (OMA) to Kansas City, MO (MCI) to Alexandria, LA (AEX), is very consistent.

-The number of coronavirus deaths in the US passed 100,000 today.

This social media space is not a place any of us come to enjoy ourselves. For many of us, it is a painful experience. Especially painful now, I think.

There is no good news. There is nothing to inspire anything but despair. And for those of us who are activists, who were able at one time to turn our feelings of outrage and sympathy into vigils and sign making and loud, righteous cries, we are constrained by conditions that threaten our own survival. Many of us are old enough to be seriously worried about contracting a disease that could shorten our longish lives.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 26 May 2020

24 flights today – 3 Deportations – Mexico (2) and Haiti 3 US Deportation Connections. 3 Deportation returns. 15 Shuffle flights in US.

Today was another busy day with deportations and shuffle flights around the country continuing to spread COVID without concern. There were at least 2 constants observed today.

-One is that there are 4 regular routes each Tuesday.

-Two is that COVID changes nothing for ICE. There are still 4 regular Tuesday routes, all just moving people from center to center.

DEATH FLIGHTS – 25 May 2020

HATE DOES NOT TAKE A HOLIDAY – While the people of the US were thinking about and honoring those who sacrificed their security and lives for our peace and freedom, this Memorial Day, ICE Air was busy taking away the freedom from people coming here for protection and to take part and earn a piece of the American dream. The same America dream that those we honor today fought and gave their lives for to protect for eternity.

TODAY:

16 flights – 3 Deportations – Honduras (2), Bogata). 4 US Deportation Connections. 3 Deportation returns. 6 Shuffle flights in US.