34,000 Deported On Flights From Boeing Field, UW Study Finds

SEATTLE, WA — Federal records obtained by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights show that King County International Airport — also called Boeing Field — has been used as a hub for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights over the last eight years. About 34,400 people have left the airport on deportation flights since 2010, according to an ICE database. An average of 360 people are deported through the airport each month, but UW researchers have seen an upward trend since Donald Trump became president.

UW researchers said the flights raise human rights concerns because not much is known about conditions aboard the airplanes. The report also says that 2,615 immigrants flew out of the airport without seeing an immigration judge.

"But even absent acts of egregious physical violence, deportations from King County on raise the same human rights concerns as flights elsewhere in the country: they separate families, amplify the impacts of racial disproportionalities in policing, and may remand people to unsafe places," the report says.

The report quotes some detainees as saying that they have been treated poorly on deportation flights. From the report:

A Salvadoran man, for example, described being subjected to rough physical treatment and degrading insults by the guards supervising the boarding process. The guards referred to deportees as “scum” and accused them of stealing jobs, he reported; and they shoved them, causing some to stumble in their leg irons as they walked to the plane.

ICE uses charter companies for the deportation flights. The flights are arranged by a company called Classic Air Charter, which then hires subcontractors like Swift Air and World Atlantic Airlines. Some fly directly to countries like China and Mexico, but a majority fly to airports along the U.S.-Mexico border.

King County, which is a sanctuary jurisdiction, has known about the flights since at least June 2018. In a statement released Tuesday, County Executive Dow Constantine said the county will do everything in its power to stop the flights — but the options are limited.

On Tuesday, Constantine signed an order that would require companies that lease space at the airport to comply with the county's sanctuary policies. The airport's standards will also be updated to require charter companies that help ICE to provide reports to the county.

According to the report, deportation flights use the call sign "RPN," which stands for "repatriate." The report criticizes the county for not doing more to track or outright stop RPN flights to comply with the spirit of the county sanctuary ordinance. It also says that the county is required to provide space for government flights because Boeing Field gets federal funding.

The report says that King County should provide records about the deportation flights if those flights are being counted as government flights. Ultimately, the report asks King County to renegotiate leases with charter companies that use Boeing Field.

"Today, the county is faced with an opportunity to again lead the nation by finding new ways to stop practices that sow so much destruction and harm in our communities. This will require creativity, commitment, and real leadership as we confront, head-on, our county’s complicity in the machinery of mass deportation," the report concludes.

You can read the entire report here.