Updated: ICE resumes Hanscom flights to support enforcement surge
The flights are supporting ICE’s Operation 2.0 enforcement surge, spokesman James Covington told The Acton Bridge.
Two months after a hasty departure, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is back at Hanscom Field.
The new flights are supporting ICE’s Operation 2.0 enforcement surge, ICE Boston spokesperson James Covington told The Acton Bridge Thursday.
Advocates began sounding alarms about the resumption of flights in recent days and the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission is set to discuss a formal demand for ICE transparency next week.
Draft letter
ICE has a contract to house detainees in one Massachusetts lockup — the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office jail in Plymouth. As agents detain more people, ICE has increasingly used chartered flights to move detainees to larger facilities.
ICE had used Hanscom in the past. Public records from the PCSO showed a spike in trips shuttling detainees to the airport as President Donald Trump ramped up immigration enforcement this year.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly halted flights out of Hanscom in July, but local advocates remained wary of a return.
ICE has an intake center in Burlington. As flights resume, Covington said the arrangement lets the agency quickly move detainees to detention facilities.
HFAC Chair Margaret Coppe circulated a draft letter early Thursday afternoon in which the group acknowledged the summer pause but said “it has come to our attention” that ICE flights returned on September 5.
The draft, addressed to ICE and Massport CEO Rick Davey, asks for information on “any and all upcoming ICE flights, including date, time, and type of aircraft.”
While advocates track purported ICE flights based on previous public records disclosures and known patterns, Covington said ICE itself doesn’t confirm specific details to protect “officer safety and operational success.”
Covington said ICE officials would work with officials like HFAC representatives. But locals might not get what they want.
“If the answer is that we can’t speak to that because it’s an ongoing operation, that might be the answer,” he said.
Recent detentions
Officials in the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, announced Operation Patriot 2.0 over the weekend as a follow-up to the agency’s Operation Patriot in May.
Already, police have seized at least two people in Acton, detaining one man and a person who arrived to pick him up on Sunday after he was released from Acton police headquarters following a drunk driving arrest.
DHS officials said agents arrested nearly 1,500 people in the first surge. ICE leaders say the new operation is targeting “the worst of the worst” across Massachusetts.
Gov. Maura Healey has pushed back, telling MSNBC that the efforts aren’t focused on public safety and are instead a case of “political theater.”
Residents protested ICE flights at Hanscom earlier this summer, and many remain frustrated about an unrelated proposal to build new jet hangars at the airfield.
HFAC includes representatives from the communities that border Hanscom and hears updates about the airport. Its next meeting is set for Tuesday, September 17, at 7 p.m.
Trace Salzbrenner contributed reporting.
