US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes, advocates say

By MARTHA BELLISLE 
Associated Press

An image from King County International Airport-Boeing Field Aug. 28, 2025

SEATTLE (AP) — Immigration advocates gather like clockwork outside Seattle’s King County International Airport to witness deportation flights and spread word of where they are going and how many people are aboard. Until recently, they could keep track of the flights using publicly accessible websites.

But the monitors and others say airlines are now using dummy call signs for deportation flights and are blocking the planes’ tail numbers from tracking websites, even as the number of deportation flights hits record highs under President Donald Trump. The changes forced them to find other ways to follow the flights, including by sharing information with other groups and using data from an open-source exchange that tracks aircraft transmissions.

Their work helps people locate loved ones who are deported in the absence of information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which rarely discloses flights. News organizations have used such flight tracking in reporting.

Tom Cartwright, a retired J.P. Morgan financial officer turned immigration advocate, tracked 1,214 deportation-related flights in July—the highest level since he started watching in January 2020. About 80% are operated by three airlines: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines. They carry immigrants to other airports to be transferred to overseas flights or take them across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico.

Cartwright tracked 5,962 flights from the start of Trump’s second term through July, a 41% increase of 1,721 over the same period in 2024. Those figures including information from major deportation airports but not smaller ones like King County International Airport, also known as Boeing Field. Cartwright’s figures include 68 military deportation flights since January—18 in July alone. Most have gone to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The work became so demanding that Cartwright, 71, and his group, Witness at the Border, turned over the job this month to Human Rights First, which dubbed its project “ICE Flight Monitor.”

“His work brings essential transparency to U.S. government actions impacting thousands of lives and stands as a powerful example of citizen-driven accountability in defense of human rights and democracy,” Uzrz Zeya, Human Rights First’s chief executive officer, said.

The airlines did not respond to multiple email requests for comment. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which would not confirm any security measures it has taken.

La Resistencia, a Seattle-area nonprofit immigration rights group, has monitored 59 flights at Boeing Field and five at the Yakima airport in 2025, surpassing its 2024 total of 42.

Not all are deportation flights. Many are headed to or from immigration detention centers or to airports near the border. La Resistencia counted 1,023 immigrants brought in to go to the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and 2,279 flown out, often to states on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“ICE is doing everything in its power to make it as hard as possible to differentiate their contractors’ government activities from other commercial endeavors,” organizer Guadalupe Gonzalez told The Associated Press.

Airlines can legally block data

The Federal Aviation Administration allows carriers to block data like tail numbers from public flight tracking websites under the Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed program, or LADD, said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar24.

“Tail numbers are like VIN numbers on cars,” Gonzalez said.

Planes with blocked tail numbers no longer appear on websites like FlightRadar24 or FlightAware. The tracker page identifies these them as “N/A – Not Available” as they move across the map and when they are on the tarmac. Destinations and arrival times aren’t listed.

Carriers have occasionally used LADD for things like presidential campaigns, but in March, FlightRadar24 received LADD notices for more than a dozen aircraft, Petchenik said. It was unusual to see that many aircraft across multiple airlines added to the blocking list, he said. The blocked planes were often used for ICE deportations and transfers, he said.

Of the 94 ICE Air contractor planes that La Resistencia was tracking nationwide, 40 have been unlisted, Gonzalez said.

Similar things happened with the call signs airlines use to identify flights in the air, Gonzalez said.

Airlines use a combination of letters in their company name and numbers to identify their planes. GlobalX uses GXA, for example. But in the past few months, the ICE carriers have changed their regular call signs, making it more difficult to locate their immigration activates, he said.

Cameras at Boeing Field help volunteers track flights

King County International Airport is one of the few sites in the country where passengers can be seen getting off and on the planes, thanks to county-operated cameras. Volunteers gather each time a flight arrives to count each person and note whether they struggle on the stairs or appear to have health issues.

ICE Air operations at Boeing Field started in 2011. The county set up cameras on the tarmac in 2023 after King County Executive Dow Constantine, having unsuccessfully tried to stop the ICE flights, issued an order requiring the county to track them at the airport. The county publishes monthly statistics on them.

The cameras record immigrants arriving on buses, being searched and being led up the stairs onto the planes. On Tuesday, one man who was hunched over shuffled down the bus’ stairs and across the tarmac using a cane, then an officer helped him climb onto the plane, one step at a time.

Detainees must navigate the plane’s stairway with their ankles chained together. Their wrists are also chained, and those cuffs are connected to a chain around their waist, so they can’t raise their arms, hold the railing or take big steps, activist Stan Shikuma told the AP.

The video can be viewed live on a giant screen in a nearby building where advocates can watch people being taken off buses from the ICE Northwest detention center. It’s also livestreamed on the county website.

“They’re patted down, head to toe, mouth examined, sometimes the chains are tightened before they’re allowed to board the plane,” Shikuma said. “People coming off the plane: same treatment.”

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