Deportation flights have resumed out of King County Airport / Boeing Field

Earlier this month, deportation flights resumed at King County Airport, also known as Boeing Field. Now, the county is also publishing data on those flights.

Most of the published information is about arrival and departure times, who operated the flight, and service providers.

For the past few flights in May, iAero Airways has been the flight operator and Signature Flight Support is the service provider. Both have headquarters in Florida.

In 2019 the airport stopped serving flights from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an executive order was issued by King County Executive Dow Constantine. The next year the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against King County.

That lawsuit ended earlier this year, and forced Boeing Field to resume deportation flights. But that doesn’t mean that the airport hasn’t worked to make it harder for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A new executive order was issued soon after the lawsuit concluded that also said the county would publish data on deportation flights. That’s not all.

“We are barred from using King County resources to assist ICE flights such as opening gates, marshaling aircraft, providing airstairs, or escorting vehicles on the airfield. Those duties have to be performed by employees of the fixed base operator (FBO) that contracts with ICE,” said Cameron Satterfield, with King County's Department of Executive Services.

Maru Mora-Villalpando is an organizer for La Resistencia, which often surveys the actions of GEO Group and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the airport. She wants the flights to stop.

“We know they [the county] can't, we knew that from the very beginning,” she said.

What she, and her colleagues also want is transparency, and access to data, like head-counts from people boarding and leaving the flights.

“ICE has told us that they will not release that information without a FOIA request,” Satterfield said.

With title 42 ending, which kept migrants seeking refugee status out of the United States, Mora-Viallpando is concerned about more people being moved through the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma.

“We already know that the conditions are horrible in that place," she said. "This is just gonna get worse."

Her organization also works to connect with people in the facility with advocates.

On April 11th, 559 detainees were held at the detention center. Its max capacity is 1,575. Detainees, and human rights groups have consistently questioned the sanitary, health, and food conditions at the facility for the past years.

KUOW has reached out to ICE to ask more about the number of detainees at the Northwest ICE Detention Center, but has not received a response. Details about flights is also information that the agency will not release.

“Due to operational security reasons, ICE does not confirm or discuss future/pending transportation operations. ICE transfers noncitizens within its detention network based on available resources and the needs of the agency,” an ICE official said.

Information on the flights will be published on the King County website on a monthly basis. The county the data will go up no later than the 15th of the following month.