Frenzy of cruel and unusual ICE flights shows Trump’s ethnic cleansing campaign is escalating – again

A sudden burst of cruel and unusual Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights in the last two days suggests the Trump administration is again escalating its ethnic cleansing campaign. On Wednesday, ICE launched four aircraft nearly simultaneously that may have carried migrants to countries where they had no ties, known as "third-country removals." While these expulsions usually surge at the end of each month, this many in one day is unprecedented.

Additionally, the unusual routing of several flights, including a failed deportation to Brazil, suggests ICE is increasingly desperate to find willing airline partners. And at least two prolonged removal trips kept migrants onboard shackled for more than 24 hours, a painful and dangerous practice experts say amounts to torture.

Altogether, there were at least 288 ICE flights and 38 removals between Sunday, July 26, and Wednesday, July 29, according to my analysis of public flight data.

Below is a breakdown of the unusual flights. Representatives for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a list of questions about them. This story will be updated if they do.

Journey Aviation

Two Gulfstream Vs operated by Journey Aviation left Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona within minutes of one another around noon on Wednesday. The ICE Air Operations office is headquartered in Mesa, and most of the removal flights to Africa in the past year have departed from there.

The planes flew to Dakar, Senegal, a likely fuel and crew change stop, before continuing on to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, where they landed Thursday morning, according to public flight data.

This trip was very likely a third-country removal. Of the five known ICE flights to Equatorial Guinea since last November, only one did not hold third-country nationals. A human-rights attorney familiar with the previous removals said they hoped to have more information about the passengers of this most recent flight soon. This story will be updated if and when that occurs.

For more on what happens to third-country nationals expelled to Equatorial Guinea, and the deal the country – deemed one of the most corrupt on the planet – has made with the Trump administration, please see the Third-Country Removal Tracker.

Talon Air

About 20 minutes before the Journey planes took off, another known ICE charter plane departed Mesa – this one operated by Talon Air and co-owned by Trump-supporting Jordache Jeans billionaire Joe Nakash, as I've previously reported.

The plane flew to Shannon Airport in Ireland, a likely fuel stop, before continuing to Budapest, Hungary; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Sofia, Bulgaria; and Tirana, Albania, where it was laying over as of Thursday afternoon.

(Full transparency: On May 20, 2025, before I was covering ICE flights as a journalist, I called Irish authorities when an ICE flight refueled at Shannon. I did not do this for the Talon flight, though I did contact local media.)

It is unclear if any of the removal stops were third-country removals, as none of these countries are known to have third-country removal agreements with the Trump administration. Talon has previously done confirmed third-country removals to Eswatini and Ghana.

Eastern Airlines

At 1:20 a.m. Wednesday, a Boeing 767 operated by Eastern Airlines left El Paso, stopped briefly at the ICE camp hub of Alexandria, LA, and then heading south toward Colombia. This isn't unusual; at least once a week, Eastern or Omni Air International does a large-jet South American route, with typical stops in Colombia, Brazil, and Chile.

But this time, flight data shows the plane sat in Bogotá for about seven hours before flying back to El Paso. In a group chat, dozens of Brazilians told me their loved ones were passengers on the plane, which was supposed to arrive in the city of Belo Horizonte Wednesday morning. They received no word about the flight until later that evening, when they received emails from the Brazilian government, screenshots of which I have viewed, saying the plane had experienced mechanical problems and returned to the United States.

Several people in the group chat described brief phone calls on Thursday with their loved ones, who told them the problem was with one of the aircraft doors. One said her loved one told her he was kept shackled on the plane for many more hours after it landed back in El Paso, and that he slept on the floor, presumably of a holding area near the airport or at the entry of an ICE camp, on Wednesday night. He had not been allowed to shower or brush his teeth for days, he told her.

The family members in the group chat were frantic for more information. One said ICE had told her loved one he would be deported "on the next flight" but had been given no indication of when that might be.

Eastern Airlines did not respond to a request for comment.

Global X

At about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a Global X plane left Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport using the callsign format it uses for all of its ICE flights. On any given day, about half of all ICE flights are operated by Global X, but up until now, all of these flights had been confined to the Americas. Which makes sense, since the aircraft in Global X's fleet – Airbus A320s and A321s – are not designed for trans-oceanic flights.

This flight, however, stopped to refuel in Bangor, Maine, before continuing on to Iceland – the first known landing of an ICE flight there since at least the start of Trump's second term, maybe ever. This was probably also a refueling stop. An Icelandic person who did not want to be named told me they contacted local media about it shortly before the plane landed at Keflavik International Airport.

The plane continued to Sofia, Bulgaria, a typical fuel and crew change stop for ICE's removal flights to Asia on Omni. While the plane flew over Europe, the flight-tracking activist who goes by "JJ in DC" told me he expected it to make a removal stop in the Republic of Georgia, based on information he'd received from a family member of a man being held at an ICE camp near Fort Worth. The plane landed at Tbilisi International Airport in Georgia on Thursday, 22 hours after it left Texas, according to flight data.

That does not appear to have been the last removal stop, however. The plane continued on to Islamabad, Pakistan, where it landed at 8:40 p.m. local time, 10:40 a.m. Texas time. At time of publishing, it was airborne again, heading northwest over Uzbekistan.

Global X did not respond to a request for comment about why it had decided to start doing ICE flights to Asia.

Omni Air International

Late Wednesday and early Thursday, an Omni aircraft made apparent ICE removal stops to Laos, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, after leaving Alexandria Tuesday evening. Migrants being deported at the final stop would have been shackled for at least 33 hours.

Omni has done scores of removal flights to Southeast Asia in the many years it has been the only large-jet airline willing to make such a long journey with shackled passengers onboard. In fact, the airline's ICE charters quadrupled after it was purchased by private-equity firm Stonepeak in April 2025, according to years of flight data I analyzed for a recent Mother Jones story.

These flights came to screeching halt in mid-June, at about the same time Stonepeak's ownership of Omni became a potential financial problem. Stonepeak is trying to purchase Chicago's parking meters, a deal that must be approved by the city council. Several members of the council have expressed disapproval of the association with ICE.

At a June 25 meeting of the council's finance committee, Stonepeak's James Wyper told members he had been trying to reduce Omni's "block hours" for ICE despite contractual obligations, and that Stonepeak planned to sell Omni. He did not provide any evidence for these claims, however, and cast doubt on the accuracy of my reporting.

(Full transparency: I have twice spoken at public meetings in Chicago in July to respond to Wyper's claims, provide evidence about the human-rights abuses Omni has facilitated and Stonepeak has profited from, and to recommend the council not approve the deal.)

For the past six weeks, Omni appears to have done only one ICE trip comprising two brief removal flights from Texas and Mexico. Before then, it was averaging 10 trips a month with multiple stops on long-haul trips to Africa, Asia, and South America, including numerous third-country removals.

Stonepeak and Omni did not respond to a request for comment, and I want to be clear that I do not know why Omni suddenly stopped doing long-haul ICE flights, or why it started again this week. I will just note that the original deadline for the council to vote on the deal was July 24th. (It was extended to September in mid-July.)

More to Come?

The frenzy of removals this week may not be over. Keith Hilzendeger, an attorney with the Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix, told me he was informed by the Department of Justice on Wednesday that a client of his from Nepal will be expelled to Central African Republic imminently. Within hours of this notification, a large ICE charter aircraft landed at the airport nearest the camp where his client is imprisoned.

At time of publishing on Thursday afternoon, the aircraft had not moved. This story will be updated if and when it does.

Thank you for reading. I am a former Washington Post staff writer, and as far as I know, I’m the only journalist in America covering ICE flights full time. I am committed to keeping this reporting non-paywalled, but if you are able, please sign up for a paid subscription or send me a one-time tip, so I can continue this important work. –Gillian