The Trump administration and the aviation companies working for it have been purposely hiding the tail numbers on immigration flights to avoid public scrutiny and accountability, CNN reports. This move comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown ratchets up in frequency and aggression, as deportation flights are up 15 percent from last year.
A plane removing a tail number is the equivalent of a car removing a license plate. With the tail number, civilians, journalists, and immigration organizations alike can keep an eye on which deportation flights are leaving, and to where. It also helps loved ones track their deported family members.
The flights are run by multiple private charter companies and at least one commercial airline, each of which have lucrative contracts with ICE.
Flightradar24, one of the websites that covers immigration, noticed in March that those subcontractors requested that their tail numbers be hidden from public flight-tracking sites and records, making them extremely difficult to follow. The bulk of these flights are domestic, moving detainees from facility to facility.
“Flights operated on behalf of the United States government are often unidentified at the government’s request. As subcontractors to the United States government, we ask that you direct your questions to them,” said a spokesperson from Avelo Airlines, a company that has dedicated three of its planes to ICE deportations.
“This is vital information to be able to understand how ICE is conducting its enforcement and deportation activities,” ACLU National Prison Project senior counsel Eunice Cho told CNN. “Sometimes this is the only information that the public has with respect to where ICE is placing people because of a general lack of transparency around detention and deportation under this particular administration.”
The Department of Homeland Security has yet to comment.
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