Breaking: ICE no longer using Hanscom Field — spokesperson
Updated: The agency had been routing flights through Hanscom for many years but “recently decided to stop.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer using Hanscom Field for local detainee flights, an ICE spokesperson confirmed to The Acton Bridge on Friday.
The agency had been routing flights through Hanscom for many years, according to ICE Boston’s James Covington, but “recently decided to stop.”
Covington said he didn’t know why higher-ups opted to leave Hanscom. In an interview, local organizer Julie Hirschler said a planned Saturday protest will go on as scheduled even though ICE has decamped.
“It may well have an air of celebration,” she said. But she expects attendees will be thinking bigger as President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement surge continues.
Covington previously told The Bridge that ICE was using Hanscom to fly detainees to areas with more bed capacity.
Asked whether this is a temporary change, Covington said it “does not seem like it.”
ICE’s Hanscom operations drew criticism from public officials in recent weeks and had already prompted one protest at the airport.
ICE’s local footprint
Covington said ICE’s Boston field office can send detainees to the Plymouth County jail, where it has a contract. Because space there is limited, ICE sometimes used Hanscom to fly to states with more capacity.
Covington said ICE keeps specific details under wraps to protect “officer safety and operational success” and wouldn’t say how many flights the agency was running out of Hanscom.
It isn’t the whole picture, but records obtained by The Bridge confirm the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office brought 545 detainees to the airport across 19 days between mid-February and May 24.
Transports spiked after Trump took office; the PCSO made just two trips to Hanscom in 2024.
Hanscom flights, first reported by WBUR, raised concerns from public officials and residents alike. Many said shuffling people among detention centers makes it hard for detainees to stay in touch with family and get legal help.
Covington said ICE didn’t deport people directly from Hanscom. If someone was getting deported from the area, he said, they would be flown first to a processing center before being put on a flight overseas.
ICE reported nearly 1,500 arrests in Massachusetts during a May enforcement surge. PSCO counts are the only public data about Hanscom activity, and that office said it shuttled 131 detainees across three trips to the airport in May.
Transparency complaints
Covington said ICE ran all its flights through Hanscom’s civilian section using chartered planes. He said he couldn’t confirm which companies the agency works with.
Acton’s representative on the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, Terri Ackerman, flagged the opacity and said the panel had an obligation to seek answers.
Despite ICE’s departure from Hanscom, she said she still plans to draft a statement for HFAC’s next meeting to consider sending to the feds.
“It will probably be saying something like, ‘We’re pleased that you stopped, and we hope it’s a permanent move,’” she said.
Rumors of an ICE reversal started percolating before a pro-democracy protest in Acton Center on Thursday. Ackerman attended and said she discussed the possibility with another demonstrator.
She said she’s opposed to ICE flights anywhere. As she pens her letter, she wants to avoid encouraging ICE to simply shift its Hanscom operations to another airport.
Organizers estimated more than 250 attended the Thursday gathering, which was part of a nationwide flood of “Good Trouble” demonstrations.
Residents’ reasons for protesting varied, but several said they were there to criticize ICE. Ackerman said ICE detentions in Acton and surrounding towns captured people’s attention.
“That is making it more real [and] making it more horrific,” she said.
‘Good trouble’
Hirschler helped organize Acton’s Good Trouble rally, which simultaneously protested Trump and honored the late civil rights leader John Lewis.
If Hanscom flights switch to another airport, Hirschler said she expects Acton organizers will be in touch with advocates in surrounding communities, “so they can carry on.”
For now, Hirschler sees a victory in possibly forcing ICE to drive farther to get detainees onto a plane. Hanscom was conveniently close to an ICE office in Burlington and closer to the Plymouth County jail than some alternatives. A longer trip, Hirschler said, could be more expensive and more time-consuming.
Beyond ICE, advocates also have their eyes on Hanscom over a proposed jet hangar expansion project which they say could bring more air traffic — and corresponding noise and pollution — to the airport.
‘We would never have known’
Asked about a man and his mother detained outside Acton police headquarters on May 17, Covington referred The Bridge to ICE’s detainee locator webpage.
“But people are honestly moving through the system so quickly now that that’s even tough to keep up with,” he said.
In an email after her interview, Hirschler praised GroundICE, which tracks suspected ICE flights using open-source data. Without the research, she said, “we would never have known” about the flights.
In a text after her interview, Ackerman said she wants to tell ICE that it should notify HFAC if it ever plans to start using Hanscom again.
This breaking story has been updated.
