Documenting ICE flights from Portsmouth Airport at Pease

Twenty-one flights transporting ICE detainees have departed from the New Hampshire airport since the flights ramped up on July 15.

On July 15, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began operating regular detainee transport flights out of Portsmouth International Airport at Pease.

ICE does not disclose flight data, and the carriers have taken steps to conceal the flights. I have documented the Pease flights based on information gathered through ADB-S Exchange—a crowd-sourced platform that collects and displays flight data from volunteer-hosted receivers—and social media reports from observers, notably JJ in DC.

To date, the recorded flights at Pease are all domestic “shuttle flights” with final destinations of Alexandria, La., or Harlingen, Texas—locations that house large detention centers and also serve as deportation hubs.

While it appears that the primary objective is to move detainees to those southern states, a small number of detainees have been removed from some of the incoming flights and taken from the airport as larger groups are loaded onto the planes for the departing flights.

This list will be updated daily. It can be accessed from the Miscellany Blue navigation bar or by visiting miscellanyblue.com/ice.