The following article was published on “La Resistencia” May 2, 2023.
The private company at the King County airport, Signature Flight Support, has agreed to help ICE resume deportation flights, amid growing state legislative calls to inspect the detention center and halt the Biden administration’s deportation record.
SEATTLE, WA – On the morning of May 2, King County International Airport saw its first ICE Air flight carrying deported immigrants in more than four years. As reported by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR), King County International Airport (KCA) had stopped its practice of serving and hosting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flights due to its in 2019 after lobbying by La Resistencia and many other groups using the UWCHR report on KCA deportation flights. The reinstatement of deportation flights presumably follows a federal court decision to strike down a 2019 King County executive order limiting the use of the airport for deportation flights.
In reality, the detention of the original deportation flight at the King County airport was not simply the result of federal and local government action. Rather, it was the result of airport service providers withholding their services from ICE deportation flights after pressure from activists, consequently prompting government action. Four years after that decision, and shortly after the announcement of the lawsuit, the private company Signature Flight Support decided to restore service to deportation flights, although the federal lawsuit does not state such a requirement.
“We want everyone to know that we will not give up our fight to end all detentions and deportations, and that includes everyone incarcerated by ICE who arrives or departs from NWDC on one of those flights,” said Manuel Abrego, co-director. of La Resistencia.
The reinstatement of deportation flights at the King County Airport follows the passage of state legislation (H.B. 1470) that would require privately operated prisons in Washington state to follow the same standards as publicly owned ones. The law has passed both houses of the state legislature and awaits Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature. If passed, the legislation would force the Department of Health to inspect without notice the Northwest Detention Center, the private immigration detention center in the Pacific Northwest and longtime culprit of human rights violations. Since the state of Washington considers immigration detention and deportation cruel practices, Signature Flight Support appears intent on continuing to help ICE perpetuate cruel anti-immigrant policies.
The decision to resume deportation flights also sheds light on President Joe Biden’s increasing use of nativist anti-immigrant policies in the US, including his failure to shut down private immigration detention centers, the annihilation of asylum procedures and even the recent decision to send troops to the US border.
La Resistencia is a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color who have been oppressed by the immigration control system. We are based in the state of Washington working to end immigration detention and stop deportations.
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