ACLU Sues ICE for Records on Deportation Flight Infrastructure

LOS ANGELES — The American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, and Mayer Brown LLP today filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records revealing how ICE Air Operations – the network of for-profit, commercial, and privately chartered deportation flights run by ICE – could be expanded to carry out a mass deportation and detention program. The lawsuit was filed after ICE failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by ACLU SoCal in August 2024. The litigation comes on the heels of comments made by President-elect Donald Trump reiterating his promise to launch the largest deportation program in American history on day one of his second term.

In 2023 alone, planes chartered by ICE Air Operations deported more than 140,000 people. Flights chartered by ICE are also used to transport people between ICE detention facilities across the country. Immigrants’ rights advocates have continuously raised concerns that ICE’s infrastructure, including its air operations network, could be expanded to assist the Trump administration in its efforts to deport more than 11 million people from the United States.

“For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and FOIA litigation has been a central part of our roadmap,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation.”

The lawsuit, ACLU of Southern California Foundation v. ICE, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and demands that ICE immediately turn over the requested records to ACLU SoCal, which include:

• All ICE contracts and records regarding air transportation to execute removals, including flights leaving the United States and domestic flights to transport noncitizens in between detention sites to stage for removals.

• Documents containing information on what ground transportation is used to transfer noncitizens to airports for removal flights.

• Records sufficient to show the airfields ICE uses, or has access to, for removal.

• Memoranda and other guidance regarding ICE’s policies or procedures for staging noncitizens, including unaccompanied noncitizen children, for removal prior to flights.

“Little is known about how President-elect Trump would carry out its mass deportation agenda, but what we do know is that this proposal has already instilled fear among immigrant communities,” said Eva Bitran, director of immigrants’ rights at ACLU SoCal. “The public has a right to know how its taxpayer dollars could be used to fund deportation flights that would tear apart not only families, but also our communities.”

Already, the ACLU has filed three lawsuits after several federal immigration agencies failed to comply with FOIA requests submitted by the organization and its affiliates. As a result, ICE has begun to release records that provide more insight to the agency’s existing infrastructure and how it could be expanded to enact anti-immigrant policies.

“The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to disclose information requested by the public,” said Sophie Mancall-Bitel, partner at Mayer Brown LLP. “It’s more important than ever that we understand what federal resources could be used to forcibly remove people from the United States.”

The complaint is available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-socal-v-ice-foia-complaint-and-exhibits-re-ice-air-operations