Massachusetts’ governor is calling for federal immigration authorities to stop using a Bedford airport for private deportation and transfer flights.
Gov. Maura Healey wrote in a Friday letter she had become aware U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as part of its “disturbing and anti-American deportation tactics,” is using “private aircrafts at Hanscom Field airport in Massachusetts to quickly remove residents and sever them from their family, friends, and counsel without due process of law.”
Healey, a Democrat, called on ICE to stop using private aircraft at Hanscom Field airport in Bedford to transfer detained immigrants. She cited recent data in the New York Times showing that the majority of those detained in Massachusetts have no criminal charges or convictions.
In October and November alone, 217 ICE flights departed from the airfield in Bedford, according to ICE Flight Monitor. The tool, hosted on Human Rights First’s website, is a data-driven initiative that documents U.S. Immigration enforcement flights and was launched by Tom Cartwright, a national immigration advocate who has independently tracked and documented such flights for years.
GBH News first reported the airport was being used to transfer immigrants to border states in overnight flights back in February.
That flight, for instance, was chartered by ICE to transport 40 detainees to New Mexico. The flight was provided by a private charter company, Eastern Air Express, which contracts with the immigration enforcement agency.
Many of the individuals on board were detained at Plymouth County’s ICE detention facility, which is the only such county facility in Massachusetts. The facility is contracted with ICE through 2028 to house immigrant detainees.
Detainees from Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island have also been flown from Hanscom Field.
“Flying these residents out of state and away from their support systems and legal counsel — often within hours of arrest — is intentionally cruel and purposely obstructs the due process and legal representation they are owed,” Healey wrote in the letter to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and Department of Homeland Security director Kristi Noem. “This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. This practice must stop.”
ICE and DHS have previously declined to tell GBH News how many people have been transferred out of Massachusetts via particular airports, and how their contracts to do so work.
“Due to operational security, ICE does not confirm airport facilities used during removal operations of illegal aliens,” a DHS spokesperson told GBH News via email last week.
Over the year, advocates and families of detained individuals have expressed that the transfers violate due process due to their sending people thousands of miles away from attorneys and family.
Healey demanded the agency stop using “any” airports and private jets to deport residents and “obstruct due process.”
A spokesperson for Massport, which runs the Bedford airport, says the quasi-public agency does not have a contract with ICE but it has no authority to halt the flights.
“‘ICE flights’ refer to charter flights operated by fixed based operators at Hanscom,” said Jennifer Mehigan, spokesperson for Massport. She said Massport doesn’t receive prior knowledge about the flights or have a role in their operation.
“Massport cannot discriminate who can or cannot use the airport,” she said. “Public use airports like Hanscom are required to accommodate all flights to the airport, including those by or on behalf of the federal government.”
ICE subcontracts with multiple private charter flight companies.
