ONLY ON AP Deported migrants on ‘ICE Air’ flight

Описание: (17 Dec 2018) Shackled at their ankles and wrists and their shoe laces removed, the long line of men and women waited on the tarmac in Houston as a team of officers patted them down and checked inside their mouths for anything hidden.
Then one by one, they climbed a mobile staircase and onto a charter plane the size of a commercial aircraft.
This was a deportation flight run by ICE Air. The chains would be removed and the shoe laces returned when the plane lands in El Salvador.
An obscure division of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates hundreds of flights each year to remove immigrants.
Deportation flights are big business: The US government has spent approximately 1 billion US dollars on them in the last decade, and the Trump administration is seeking to raise ICE's budget for charter flights by 30 percent.
ICE Air Operations transports detained immigrants between American cities and, for those with final removal orders, back to their home countries. About 100,000 people a year are deported on such flights.
While Mexican immigrants are generally flown to southern US cities and then driven to the border so they can cross over, Central Americans have to be transported by air.
And the large numbers of Mexicans who used to cross the border have largely been replaced by migrants from three impoverished Central American countries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
According to flight-tracking data, deportation flights to Guatemala and Honduras have sharply increased this year.
The agency estimated last year that it spends about 7,785 US dollars per hour on the flights.
ICE shifted to chartering private planes about a decade ago after previously using a government service with the US Marshals.
Charter flights also avoid putting large numbers of deported immigrants on commercial planes, which requires buying tickets for deportation officers accompanying them, or holding them in the US for longer than necessary and tying up space in detention centers.
But migrant advocacy groups say ICE Air is an example of how tougher immigration enforcement - from detention to tracking to removal - enriches private companies.
The Associated Press observed a deportation flight being loaded last month at a private terminal of Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
According to the agency, 29 of the 50 people who boarded the plane in Houston had been arrested on criminal charges, including four who were wanted in El Salvador for attempted murder or homicide, the agency said.
The remaining 21 were considered non-criminal, meaning they were being deported for immigration violations. Twenty of the 50 had been deported before.
ICE would not let AP reporters view the inside of the plane, but officials said the flights are orderly and quiet. A meal is served, and a doctor is on board. But all detainees - even those considered non-criminal - remain shackled until the plane lands.

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