Immigrant advocates picket against immigrant detainee flights at Salt Lake airport

SALT LAKE CITY — Local immigrant advocates are taking aim at another aspect of the ongoing immigration crackdown — regular flights in and out of Salt Lake City International Airport by charter air companies hauling immigrant detainees.

The fights, in the general aviation area of the airport, have been occurring since at least April, advocates say, and they gathered Thursday in the main terminal to picket and call attention to them. A handful of demonstrators holding protest signs were on hand as of late Thursday morning in a designated free speech area adjacent to the baggage claim area at the airport.

“I think most people aren’t aware what is going on out here every Monday and Thursday,” said Carolyn Jenkins, one of the demonstrators, referencing the typical days flights hauling immigrants out of Salt Lake City occur.

Clare Coonan, who was also demonstrating, thinks the Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights — occurring all around the country — are another example of what she sees as overly heavy-handed action against the immigrant population.

“We want to stop the ICE flights and we want to stop the abuse that ICE is doing in the name of our government,” she said.

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Some immigrant detainees face regular movement within the United States from detention center to detention center, she said, and she charges that the intent is to deliberately separate them from family members, their communities and their legal representation.

“So out of this airport, twice a week, we are trafficking people, not because we want to keep our nation safe, but because we want to make it harder for those people to have constitutional due process rights,” Coonan said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security noted attacks ICE agents and other DHS partners have faced in declining to provide specifics about detainee flights. Immigrant advocates around the country have tapped into public information about flight activity in determining when and where immigrant detainees and those facing deportation are going, within the country and to destinations abroad.

“Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong. ICE officers are now facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them. For operational security purposes, we are not going to confirm what airports our deportation flights are operating out of,” the agency said in a statement to KSL.

Since at least April, the general aviation area of Salt Lake City International Airport has served as a stopping point for chartered flights hauling immigrant detainees, according to TJ Young, who has been tracking the air activity since July. She’s witnessed, from afar, shackled detainees boarding airplanes operated by companies she and other local advocates identify as Global Crossing, Air Wisconsin and Eastern Air Express.

Representatives from the three companies didn’t immediately respond to queries seeking comment.

Jenkins also witnessed detainees boarding one of the flights, shackled at the hands and ankles. The general aviation area of the airport, served by two fixed-base operations, sits east of the main commercial terminals and services charter flights and private air travelers.

“I guess they’re held in hangars until the flight lands and then they’re put into vans and they park near the airplane they’re going to be riding in. And then the ICE officers put them into shackles and they are led upstairs (into airplanes),” Jenkins said. “It’s upsetting.”

Young has also witnessed the boarding of detainees and posted pictures of them on social media. In response, friends and family members of some of the detainees, on seeing her posts, have reached out to her, recognizing someone they know and worried about where they are.

Destinations of flights from Salt Lake City include Tacoma, Washington; Bakersfield, California; and El Paso, Texas, according to the organizers of Thursday’s demonstration. In July alone, they say, 386 immigrants were hauled out of the airport on flights leaving Salt Lake City.

Participants in Thursday’s demonstration included representatives from numerous immigrant advocacy groups that have formed in response to the crackdown on illegal immigration under President Donald Trump. They were assigned to a relatively quiet section of the terminal near baggage carousel 9, but Coonan said at least some in the airport were taking note of their presence.

“I’m watching people and they’re clocking that we’re here with our signs. They’re reading the signs,” she said.

The immigration crackdown has been a focus of sharp debate, with immigrant advocates charging that most detainees don’t have violent criminal records. The Trump administration warns that immigrants in the country illegally sap public resources and pose a danger to the U.S. communities where they live.

“Our brave law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to arrest pedophiles, rapists, murderers, drug traffickers and gang members,” reads the DHS statement. “Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t even count human rights abuses, wanted foreign fugitives, terrorists, and gang members who lack a rap sheet in the U.S.”