Trump & Co step up deportations of Cameroonian and other African asylum seekers in flights operated by ICE contractor, Omni Air International.

Image: North Texas Dream Team

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 9 November – please share for transparency

HURRICANE AND HATE COLLIDE

Ø 25 DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN SPITE OF 4-5 FEWER BECAUSE THERE WERE NO FLIGHTS TO HONDURAS AS IT WAS DEVASTATED BY HURRICANE “Eta” AND “Iota” MAY BE ON THE WAY.

Ø 9 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 3 IN AFRICA: CAMEROON, DR CONGO AND ANGOLA

Ø 99 TOTAL FLIGHTS

Image: North Texas Dream Team

Time ticks on, making me ache with awareness of time’s limit for me. And ache with the larceny against us, the theft of our time and our lives, as we, starved for oxygen, await the end we are being denied. The end of this frozen grimace of an era, an era that hammered home the lesson that we never knew, that we thought we knew, but that we never knew: that tragedy is as human as hope, and that each breath delivers both.

Photo: @Allan Mestel

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 2 November – please share for transparency

Ø 21 DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN SPITE OF 4-5 FEWER BECAUSE THERE WERE NO FLIGHTS TO HONDURAS AS IT WAS DEVASTATED BY “ETA” STORM AND FLOODING (see picture)

Ø 7 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

Ø 89 TOTAL FLIGHTS – ALMOST ½ DOMESTIC SHUFFLE FLIGHTS MOVING PEOPLE AROUND AS 3RD COVID WAVE RAGES

New Report: ICE Air Flights, October and October 2020 Year-to-Date

And here we are, beaten and bruised by a struggle we either were born into, or somehow got tangled up in, and now long too late to make our way out of. Some rely on hope, or faith. Some, like me, just pointing ourselves in the direction of a flimsy compass needle that trembles and flutters inside, feeling very much like heart palpitations. When there is comfort, it comes from the others that are also snarled and snagged so badly that they know any efforts to get out will only tighten the knots.

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 26 October – please share for transparency

Ø TIED FOR THE 2nd HIGHEST DEPORTATION WEEK OF THE YEAR AT 31

Ø 10 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

Ø We continue to believe the ICE Air ramp up over the last 5 weeks reflects more T-42 (CDC order) expulsions by air.

Ø 127 TOTAL FLIGHTS – 5TH week in a row over 100 per week.

All of humanity suffers. At times, intensely. And even in those moments we do not, suffering is always available to us, because we have that lamentably human propensity to share the suffering of others.

The border wall, no matter how high they build it, will not stop the suffering.

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 19 October – please share for transparency

Ø We continue to believe the ICE Air ramp up over the last 4 weeks reflects more T-42 (CDC order) expulsions by air.

Ø 27 DEPORTATIONS - brings the 6 week to average to 25, up from 18 for the prior 6 week average. (note: includes people expelled under T-42)

Ø 7 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.

Ø 106 TOTAL FLIGHTS – 4TH week in a row over 100 per week.

WE ARE ASKING THE WORLD FOR MORAL HELP AND LEADERSHIP. THIS IS WHAT THIS ADMINISTRATION'S TERROR HAS BROUGHT US. PERHAPS THIS WILL HELP.

How do they justify it? To each other. Sometimes they just say it out loud. And you can get an idea about the shape it takes in their minds. Here’s one thing we just heard: only low-IQ people would be stupid enough to show up for their immigration court hearings.

Why is that considered a stupid thing to do?

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 12 October

Ø RECORD BREAKING WEEK OF DEATH FLIGHTS

Ø 34 DEPORTATIONS - THE MOST DEPORTATIONS IN ANY WEEK IN 2020, EVEN PRE-PANDEMIC (these include expulsions under Title 42 (CDC Order) - to 10 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.

Ø 125 TOTAL FLIGHTS – 4TH HIGHEST WEEK IN 2020.

Image: “Crying for Freedom” by Laurie Cooper

It is tempting to imagine that we are living in end times. Those of us who are older and confined to quarters as the pandemic spikes might conflate our own fates with the fate of the world. The dead end in front of me could indeed be for me alone, or it might be for everyone. Those who speak of end times look for signs, and there are signs everywhere. Fires burning out of control, great storms, the pandemic itself. For me, the disappointments with the eruptions of age, flareups in body and mind, are signs as well.

Scorched earth.

During these days, days that we hope will lead to end of what I think could properly be called a reign of terror, we will see—indeed we are seeing—an angry regime doing its very best to hurt the country, the people of our country, and with specific vengeance reserved for people of color, all people who stand in the way of the imperium that was to last a thousand years. It is the imperium of greed, and its weapons, inequality and racism and exploitation, will be deployed with a resentful fervor in these days ahead.

A MELANGE OF EMOTIONS

Over the past few days Witness at the Border was humbled to work with over 100 amazing advocates to try to stop an Omni International ICE Air deportation flight to Africa. Despite the efforts of this tireless group and some Members of Congress (below), 60 Cameroonians were sent back to a country in the middle of a civil war. 28 Congolese were also deported on this plane to a country extremely ill-equipped to deal with the risk of COVID exportation. We failed to move ICE to a humanitarian place. We may have failed to save some lives.

WHY WE WITNESS – THE MACHINE

To be sure the past month or so has been filled with horrendous events including unaccompanied children held in hotels by transportation specialists, despicable medical conditions and encounters at Irwin Detention Center, detainee deaths reaching an all-time annual high, and ICE Air activity at record in-pandemic levels, just to name a few.

“False Profit,” painting by Mear One

It’s cool this morning here in Brooklyn, and there is a breeze. Breezes are a good thing, because they disperse and dilute the particles that carry Covid. To the south of the neighborhood I live in, schools are being closed. It appears the long-predicted fall surge of the deadly virus has begun.

Everything you NEED to know about America's most troubled law enforcement agency, with Jenn Budd.

NEW REPORT on September and YTD ICE Air #DeathFlights

When those we are against behave as horribly as those we now face, knowing what we are against is easy. We are against racism and xenophobia, and we are against a terrorist government that encourages terrorism by paramilitary groups and more official arms of terror like ICE and CBP, whose persecution of the poor and brown and black make them easy to hate.