Legal Commentary

All Aboard ICE Air

By Jeralyn

We have Con Air for inmates and Ghost Air for detainees and now there's ICE Air. Tonight, Nightline examines ICE Air, the airline that deports the undocumented:

ICE has 22 detention facilities all over the country. When illegal immigrants are caught, they're flown to one of three hubs in Texas, Arizona or Louisiana. From there, ICE Air has daily flights to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and also frequent flights to Nicaragua, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and the Caribbean. When it gets enough immigrants to fill a plane, it also flies to Asia, eastern Europe and Africa. ICE Air leases nine planes, and sometimes it also charters commercial jets. It flies six days a week.

Business is brisk. [More...]

Last year, the airline flew 209,000 immigrants home:

At a time when most airlines are cutting flights and adding fees for aisle seats, extra luggage and snacks, ICE air is growing by about 10 percent a year.

How are the conditions? This is pretty funny.

"For most of these folks, they've had a long journey getting here to the United States. They've been in custody anywhere from two days to two weeks to two months, so we want to make sure that once they get onboard they have a favorable impression of the government," said [Chief of flight operations Michael] Pitts.

I wish Nightline would not call the immigrants "illegal aliens." They are undocumented residents. No human being is illegal. Tune in and see if they sugar-coat the story in favor of ICE. The article reads like a ringing endorsement of the program.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).