The booming business of Trump’s deportation flights

Days before last year’s US presidential election, Donald Trump took the stage at an aircraft hangar in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and railed against illegal immigrants, claiming they came from prisons and insane asylums and calling them “killers”, “drug addicts” and “gang members”.

Ten months later, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is set to become the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, spending billions of dollars on the administration’s ambitious deportation goal. But to deport people, ICE needs to move them. And to move them, it needs aeroplanes.

The hangar that hosted Trump’s appearance is owned by CSI Aviation, a company that brokers private charter flights for the federal government. Now, CSI Aviation and the airlines it calls on are in prime position to benefit from his presidency.

CSI, which was paid $4,000 to host Trump’s event, sits at the centre of a private, multibillion-dollar system that shuffles thousands of immigrants on dozens of daily flights between US detention facilities and to foreign countries. ICE has relied on this network instead of building its own fleet.

The rising demand for ICE Air transport is proving lucrative to private charter airlines such as GlobalX and the budget airline Avelo, which are making millions of dollars from the flights — and sometimes reversing otherwise dire corporate financial straits. In a memo to employees obtained by the Financial Times, Avelo deemed the ICE flights “too valuable not to pursue”.

Years of lobbying, campaign contributions and White House ties are helping the companies position themselves to benefit. CSI’s chief, Allen Weh, was appointed by Trump during his first term to a Pentagon advisory board, and his daughter played a role in the effort to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

A record infusion of cash in the upcoming fiscal year could provide an even greater windfall. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arm currently has an annual “transportation and removals” budget of $721mn. But under Trump’s new budget, the agency plans to spend an extra $3.6bn a year on removal transportation — a predicted six-fold annual increase from today and four times what ICE requested in its own funding proposal.

“The American people elected President Trump to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in history,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. “The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ provided necessary funding to carry out the operation and the Trump administration will continue deporting criminal illegal aliens in the most efficient way possible.”

Dan Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government programme, says the “spending bonanza” raises the risk of ethics conflicts. “You are going to get lots and lots of private contractors jockeying for advantage here,” he said. “There are tremendous incentives to use every lever possible to curry favour with those in power.”

Firsthand accounts from ICE Air passengers and personnel describe it as chaotic, disorganised and under strain. Passengers are shackled on long flights with limited food or bathroom breaks, causing flight attendants to raise safety concerns. Military aircraft are supplementing private charters, and federal air marshals have been seconded from their normal commercial air duties to provide security.

“I think 98 per cent of the people there thought it was horribly run and unsustainable,” one air marshal told the FT.

ICE has used at least 110 aeroplanes to transport detainees on more than 5,100 flights since Trump retook office on January 20. These planes have crisscrossed the US and the globe, ferrying detainees between detention centres and foreign destinations.

Tom Cartwright, a retired JPMorgan executive, began tracking ICE’s airborne operations as an immigration activist in 2019. His data — more than 40,000 flights — shows the frequency has increased since the second Trump administration took office, from an average of 600 flights per month before this year to more than 1,000 in recent months.

The majority of ICE flights are domestic — the agency operates from five hubs in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Florida, but has landed at over 120 different airports across the US. An FT analysis shows that half of detainees were transferred between facilities at least twice, with over 100,000 transfers more than 400km from January to July.

“ICE kind of looks at the United States as just one big jail that it can use at its discretion,” said Heidi Altman, vice-president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center.

One air marshal who worked on the flights said ICE would lose track of detainees, filing incorrect passenger lists nearly every day. “They don’t know where the bodies are. They’re moving them around the country so much, they can’t keep up with them,” he said.

International “removal” flights have also increased, partially enabled by a US Supreme Court ruling in June allowing the deportation of detainees to countries other than their place of origin. In the first half of this year, more than 750 people were sent to a country that did not match their citizenship or place of birth, analysis of ICE data shows. Half went to Mexico or Canada, while others have gone to El Salvador, Colombia and South Sudan. Deportation flights also depart weekly for Central American countries including Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.

ICE Air flights operate under a cloak of secrecy. The agency has resisted efforts to disclose details of its programme under the Freedom of Information Act and often files documents under seal in closed courtrooms when disputes arise. Its planes are also excluded from some public flight records. It means much of what is known about the secretive airline is pieced together from the experiences of the people involved.

Before 2010, the Department of Justice’s US Marshals Service transported immigrant detainees on behalf of ICE. But the agency struggled to keep up with demand, so the Obama administration pivoted to private charters for its deportation effort.

CSI Aviation, the owner of the New Mexico hangar, was awarded ICE’s air charter contract in 2024. That contract, worth $3.6bn over five years, was halted by litigation from a rival company, with CSI operating on an “interim” contract since February. The deal has already netted the air charter broker $319mn.

Weh, CSI’s founder and CEO, has been a fixture of Republican politics in New Mexico for more than a decade. A former state party chair and failed US Senate candidate, Weh has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns in recent years, including gifts of $150,000 to a Trump-affiliated joint committee and $110,000 to the Republican National Committee in September, according to campaign finance statements.

Senate disclosure filings show CSI has also hired lobbyists to represent its interests before Congress, spending $50,000 in the most recent quarter on issues including “immigration transportation”.

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, Weh spoke at rallies in support of Trump’s immigration crackdown. “Open borders. Are you kidding me?” Weh told a cheering crowd at one event. “If you cross the border illegally, you need to be removed.” In 2020, Trump appointed Weh to the Pentagon’s Defense Business Board, a private sector advisory panel.

Deborah Weh Maestas, Weh’s daughter and a former CSI executive, also served as state Republican party chair. According to local prosecutors and a congressional committee, Weh Maestas was one of the “fake electors” who attempted to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 general election. Weh Maestas and the other New Mexico electors were not charged.

Before he left office, Trump said he intended to appoint Weh Maestas to the President’s Export Council, an advisory panel on international trade.

CSI Aviation, Weh and Weh Maestas did not respond to requests for comment.

In May, senior Democrats on the House homeland security committee sought information from Allen Weh on CSI’s operations, citing allegations of “dangerous conditions” on the flights. In response, the company said its role was “strictly operational” and conducted legally, referring queries to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to letters obtained by the FT.

ICE did not provide a comment and DHS did not respond to requests from the FT.

ICE Air is a boon for the airlines involved. More than half of the flights in 2025 were subcontracted to GlobalX, the private charter airline that has used 11 planes to operate more than 3,800 flights in the US and abroad.

GlobalX was founded in 2019 by longtime airline executive Ed Wegel. By 2022, GlobalX had six planes and a contract with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the US regulator for university sport. It took over government business from a struggling competitor and by 2024 operated 5,300 flights for ICE, which was responsible for 40 per cent of its revenue.

ICE Air has helped GlobalX turn losses into profits. FT analysis of the company’s second-quarter results shows ICE now represents 58 per cent of its business. In a call with analysts in August, president and chief financial officer Ryan Goepel said, “We feel there’s demand for significantly more passengers.” GlobalX declined to comment further.

Avelo is the only passenger airline operating for ICE. Beginning operations in 2021, and formed from what was once Casino Express, a budget service to Las Vegas, the privately held company has expanded rapidly in deportation flights as its commercial operations have struggled.

Avelo did not make a profit for the first nearly four years of operation. Earlier this year, the company tried to raise funds through New York investment bank Jefferies, which insiders say drew little interest. Internally at the bank, the effort was known as Project Maverick, after the Tom Cruise character in the film Top Gun.

“One of our remaining challenges is the fact that we spend more money to deliver our product than we earn from customers who buy the product,” founder and chief executive Andrew Levy wrote in a letter to employees obtained by the FT. He explained the company was turning to ICE operations to “help us stabilize our finances and allow us to continue our journey”.

Avelo has expanded its deportation business while curtailing its commercial service, announcing in July that it would close its base at Burbank airport in Los Angeles county. It has operated at least 568 immigration flights this year using three Boeing 737s based at ICE’s hub in Mesa, Arizona. Avelo has repainted the planes white to remove traces of the airline’s consumer branding.

In June, a small group of protesters gathered outside Jefferies’ Manhattan office, calling for a consumer boycott of Avelo. “This is not the America I know,” said Diane Sidikman, 91. “Somebody has to do something.”

In response to an interview request, Avelo provided a statement that it said would “suffice for any interview”. It reads in part: “Regardless of the administration or party affiliation, as a US flag carrier when our country calls and requests assistance our practice is to say yes.”

Two former Avelo employees told the FT they were fired after objecting to the ICE flights on moral and safety grounds. “My manager asked me, ‘Are you refusing to do these trips in the future? If so, we need to talk about your future employment with the company,’” said one flight attendant who flew on two ICE charters. He was fired six months later.

There are signs the government’s rush to accelerate deportations is overloading its contractors. In June, the Transportation Security Administration began asking federal air marshals to assist privately contracted deportation flights. The air marshals, rapidly expanded after 9/11, normally work undercover on commercial flights to prevent terrorism and hijackings.

Documents seen by the FT show that TSA agreed to provide between 100 and 250 marshals on 60-day postings at ICE Air hubs. “They’re turning air marshals into flight attendants,” said Sonya LaBosco, executive director of the Air Marshal National Council, which represents the officers.

One air marshal who had recently completed a rotation told the FT he and his colleagues were advised to volunteer now or risk being assigned to ICE over the holidays.

Arriving at the ICE hub, the air marshal noticed contractors appeared overworked. “They’re working seven days per week,” he said. “Some of these people looked torn down. All of us did, after a 24- or 30-hour day. But they’d get off the flights and be told they’d have to go back in four hours.”

The air marshal, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to speak, complained that he and his colleagues were removed from law enforcement duties to assist contractors. “We’re loading planes with food and water, unloading garbage, checking for lice, putting chains on people and taking them off,” he said.

He said many flights were sparsely populated. “It’s really strange to country-hop all over Central America and not even have a full flight. It’s not cost-effective.”

“Our federal air marshals are performing a critical national security role providing in-flight security on ICE ERO deportation missions,” a TSA spokesperson said. “This support does not detract from other mission priorities, including flight protection.”

TSA also said it was aware of a “small number of cases” when air marshals worked extended hours, and said it was working with ICE “to provide our people with the care and resources they need as they continue to carry forth this critical mission”.

US Air Force and Coast Guard aviators have also been enlisted to help ICE, operating at least 260 flights in 2025. On one occasion, the air marshal flew on an Air Force C-17, equipped to hold more than 100 passengers but carrying fewer than 30. He said the military aviators complained that the maintenance costs were not worth it.

An official with the US Transportation Command said the joint force “supports the Department of Homeland Security by providing military airlift when tasked”, and a Pentagon official said the Department of Defense was covering the costs on behalf of ICE. The Coast Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

Before heading abroad, flights often stop at multiple detention centres to pick up passengers, extending the trip’s duration. There were 666 stops along removal flights from January to July, a 79 per cent increase over the same period in 2024.

“There were 30-something-hour days,” the marshal said. “There was no sleep except for on the last flight back.”

This year, there have been at least 60 multi-stop itineraries of more than 10 hours, not including the return journey. There were only 16 such flights in all of 2024.

A 2024 ICE Air Operations Handbook requires detainees on its aircraft to be “fully restrained” with handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons for the duration of all flights. It says that a sandwich and snack will be provided, with “additional meals” offered on trips longer than 10 hours.

“Some of those people were in chains for 20 hours before they got loose,” the air marshal said. “They sit in an aeroplane seat and aren’t able to go to the bathroom except every four to six hours . . . They were irritated, just like I would be.”

The handbook specifies that detainees will be attended to by private security guards, rather than air stewards. The Avelo flight attendant who was fired for raising concerns said ICE staff and security guards defied his authority, ignoring safety instructions.

“All of the alarm bells in my head were going off,” he explained. “When you’re trained to be a flight attendant, safety is the number one priority. You have to evacuate a plane in 90 seconds, and it became pretty clear to me they wouldn’t be able to.”

“If we had an emergency landing, they’re not going to be able to get off the plane,” the air marshal said. “If we had a water landing, God forbid, they’re all going to drown.”