ICE deportation flights routed through Pease
Four detainee removal flights, all operated by Omni Air International, refueled in Portsmouth last month before departing for destinations in Asia and the Middle East.
The first ICE detainees deported to Iran since sweeping anti-government protests triggered a deadly government crackdown spent time on the tarmac at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease last month.
Fourteen Iranians, including three former members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were among the shackled passengers on a Boeing 763 that refueled at Pease on its way to Tehran just days after the Iranian government crushed mass protests by reportedly killing at least 3,000 demonstrators.
After two hours on the ground following its arrival from Phoenix, the Omni Air International flight continued to Cairo. There, according to ICE Flight Monitor, Russian nationals were transferred to an Egyptian charter bound for Moscow, while the Iranian passengers continued to Kuwait, where they boarded a Kuwaiti charter that delivered them to Tehran.
The 14 men were part of a larger group of at least 40 Iranian nationals who were originally scheduled to be on the flight before many were moved into quarantine due to a measles outbreak at the ICE Florence Detention Facility in Central Arizona.
Two gay men were among those receiving a last-minute reprieve. Their lawyer, Bekah Wolf, told MS NOW the men fled Iran after they were arrested by the country’s morality police. She said they have no criminal convictions and have active appeals for stays of removal.
According to Wolf, the men face “an extremely high chance” of being executed on their return to Iran, where same-sex sexual activity is illegal and punishable by death. “If they were to be sent back right now, they’re facing death sentences by hanging,” she told CNN. The medical reprieve for the two men is likely only temporary.
‘Increasingly inhumane’
The January 25 flight was one of four ICE deportation flights routed through Pease last month. There were no reports of any detainee transfers while the planes were on the ground in Portsmouth.
Omni Air International was the operator for all of the flights. The Oklahoma-based air charter company is the dominant provider for ICE “special high-risk charter” (SHRC) flights. These are flights to repatriate immigrants subject to final orders of removal to locations worldwide and may include those who have “failed to comply with final orders of removal, security risks, or other risk factors.”
Omni was the subject of a recent Mother Jones profile, which reported the company’s flights “are becoming increasingly inhumane.” Since an ownership change in April 2025, it noted, 40% of its deportation flights have lasted more than 24 hours before reaching the final stop.
“Migrants onboard until then would have spent all that time, and likely more, shackled,” author Gillian Brockell wrote. A man on a deportation flight to Laos told her he was shackled for 73 hours. An immigration lawyer told her about a Vietnamese detainee who was shackled for more than 80 hours on a flight out of El Paso.
Shackling detainees for long periods, explained forensic pathologist Judy Melinek, puts them at risk of developing dangerous blood clots and permanent nerve damage, as well as swelling, bruising, and cuts.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has accused Omni of committing numerous abuses tied to its ICE operations. “One notorious example is a 2017 removal flight to Somalia which was rerouted to Senegal, where it remained on the tarmac for hours before eventually returning to the United States,” the report noted. “The passengers reported that during their 40-hour odyssey aboard the plane, they suffered beatings, threats, forced straitjacketing, and the denial of access to working bathrooms, forcing some to soil themselves in their seats.”
Portsmouth Int’l Airport at Pease — January 2026
Jan. 6: Omni flight OAE3923 from Phoenix landed at Pease at 2:02 a.m. After refueling, the flight departed at 6:15 a.m. for New Delhi, India, with stops in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Doha, Qatar.
Jan. 20: Omni flight OAE3919 arrived from El Paso at 12:30 p.m. After refueling, the flight departed for Bucharest, Romania. ICE Flight Monitor reported the flight continued to Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan.
Jan. 25: Omni flight OAE3919 arrived from Phoenix at 1:53 p.m. After two hours on the ground, the Boeing 763 departed for Egypt and continued to Kuwait. It returned to Phoenix on Jan. 27 with refueling stops in Sofia, Bulgaria, and at Pease.
Jan. 27: Omni flight OAE3982 landed at Pease at 5:12 a.m. from Harlingen, Texas. It departed Portsmouth at 8:55 a.m., stopping to refuel in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Doha, Qatar, on its way to New Delhi, India, where it landed after a 28-hour journey.