No, Tuscaloosa's Airport Is Not Smuggling In Undocumented Migrants

TUSCALOOSA, AL — No, the Tuscaloosa National Airport is not smuggling in undocumented immigrants on charter flights in the early morning hours while you're asleep.

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Indeed, a story published this week on the openly-conservative punditry website Yellowhammer News stopped just short of making the flat accusation under the headline "Late-night southern border flights make landing in Alabama cities."

For instance, the author writes: "The irregular flight patterns consist of multi-passenger aircraft that departed from Texas at El Paso International Airport and arrived in Alabama at Montgomery Regional Airport and Tuscaloosa National Airport."

But after the brief mention of times and flight patterns, potential evidence gives way to speculation.

The 513-word article, which does not include a single on-the-record source or interview, relies heavily on implying to its readers that certain arrivals of large aircraft at Alabama airports from departure sites near the U.S. border with Mexico could possibly be connected to real examples of human smuggling reported by media outlets such as the New York Post.

While there are, in fact, plenty of instances where human smuggling is a real issue in cities across the country, the speculation in the story gives no evidence supporting its central theory — one that contends Alabama's airports could be providing cover for human smuggling from "south of the border."

Amid the wild, unsubstantiated accusations of clandestine activity during the wee small hours at airports in Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, few details are given about the airlines or airports apart from early-morning arrival times. Simply put, the story provided to the reader offers little else other than the far-right media outlet's independent analysis of unspecified data, which lacks a single expert or local source speaking to the matter, be it on-the-record or on background.

However, even the author himself — who used less than 200 words for his main thesis, before wandering off into thinly-veiled rhetoric — admits there is nothing else other than arrival times when it comes to hard evidence to support the notion that undocumented immigrants of any kind are somehow being flown into Alabama.

Still, the story was published and Tuscaloosa National Airport officials confirmed to Patch that they were never contacted by Yellowhammer News to provide insight or context for the accusations that mentioned the airport by name.

Tuscaloosa Patch has reached out via email to the author of the story to clarify his reporting and will provide any quotes or context if the request is honored.

TCL Airport Manager Jeff Powell, in a text message response to Patch on Tuesday, said the flights referenced in the Yellowhammer News story — at least as far as Tuscaloosa is concerned — are related to automotive parts deliveries for Mercedes-Benz U.S. International's large-scale manufacturing operations in Vance.

Indeed, as Patch previously reported, Tuscaloosa's airport has invested millions in improvements to better serve the German automaker's needs from its suppliers, with TCL pivoting to focus more on cargo service.

"Our cargo operations, as similar to other airports, most often occur in the evening and early morning hours," Powell explained. "We’ve supported [MBUSI] for years and comes from multiple locations from Mercedes suppliers in Mexico and throughout the U.S. They clear official ports of entry established through [Department of Homeland Security] and then continue on to TCL."

Powell then said the public is more than welcome to visit the airport for any of these flights to see up close how the operations are handled.

Even as Tuscaloosa Patch collected source material for this story, one of the many cargo flights from Laredo, Texas was scheduled to land at TCL just before 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.

"The aircraft that are used are very often older passenger aircraft that have been converted to cargo aircraft," Powell explained, underscoring an omission in the Yellowhammer News story that resulted in local officials being accused of running cover-up operations for human trafficking. All this with zero evidence to support such claims, apart from hyper-specific anecdotes in other states and odd arrival times.

Powell's point on converted passenger aircraft also partly verifies Tuscaloosa Patch's "independent analysis" of the same accusations for Montgomery, with the only company named in the story being Kalitta Charters II.

The only plane fitting the description of the one mentioned in the Yellowhammer News story, which carries an identifying tail number of N730CK, was purchased by Kalitta in 2014 from Ukraine International Airlines, before being converted into a freighter in March the following year and used as a cargo plane ever since.

While these planes did indeed exist at one time as passenger planes capable of carrying nearly 200 people, they now transport little more humanity other than their crew in most instances.

According to flight tracking records, the cargo plane at the center of the conspiracy theory in the Yellowhammer News story arrived on July 1 just before 1 p.m. in Montgomery from El Paso — a notion also acknowledged in the story. In the simplest terms, this fact by itself works against the rhetoric speculating that these questionable flights landed under the cover of darkness during the "late-night" hours.

It's also worth noting that the story fails to at least give mention not only to Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama in Montgomery, but Maxwell Air Force Base, when trying to explain just what might be on those early-morning cargo plane arrivals at Montgomery Regional Airport.

What it does provide, though, is a quick selection of hand-picked stories from other states that drive the narrative of U.S. authorities — especially in cities with liberal or Democratic leadership, like Montgomery and Tuscaloosa — somehow being directly responsible for the flow of undocumented immigrants entering the country.

Despite the outlandish speculation that was easily refuted in his city, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox expressed his frustration concerning the distortion of basic public information, taking to social media Tuesday evening to call the story a "work of fiction."

Maddox then provided the same explanation as his colleagues at TCL, saying the flights containing cargo for MBUSI originated from one of four sites in Mexico that then has to clear United States Customs in El Paso or Laredo, Texas.

"We get several of these flights weekly, and I am glad that we do - MBUSI and its suppliers mean thousands of great jobs for the hard working people of our community," Maddox said. "Tuscaloosa National Airport is not hub for illegal immigration - Please ignore those who knowingly share misinformation for their own political gain or 'journalists' who post click bait."

Editor's note: I would like to thank my old friend, former college roommate and newspaper co-worker Tim Steere for his invaluable help with this story.

Have a news tip or suggestion on how I can improve Tuscaloosa Patch? Maybe you're interested in having your business become one of the latest sponsors for Tuscaloosa Patch? Email all inquiries to me at ryan.phillips@patch.com.