Multiple countries are now investigating U.S. deportation flights following disturbing reports that migrants have been flown in chains to dangerous nations such as Djibouti and South Sudan. One flight, carrying over 100 people, stopped to refuel in Ireland, sparking outrage and official inquiry. These flights are not routine removals. They are disappearances carried out by a militarized deportation system. This is not immigration policy. This is state violence. This is why we say abolish ICE.
Hidden Flights, Hidden Suffering
One of the most alarming cases involved a group of men who were deported mid-trial and flown toward South Sudan, a region under active State Department travel advisories. A federal court had issued a stay to halt their removal, but ICE disregarded it. The migrants were diverted and left at Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. naval base in Djibouti. According to reporting from Truthout and AP News, they were held inside a converted shipping container without adequate food or sanitation, suffering through intense heat, illness, and proximity to active military conflict. ICE officers themselves were caught off guard, also becoming stranded, some falling ill from bacterial infections and smoke inhalation.
These flights are executed with secrecy and speed, designed to avoid legal intervention. Once migrants are airborne, legal challenges become nearly impossible. Deportation becomes disappearance.
Ireland Responds, International Tension Rises
After a U.S. deportation flight landed unannounced at Shannon Airport, Irish lawmakers began calling for government accountability. The Irish Deputy Prime Minister referred to it as a potential human rights violation. Ireland’s parliament is now investigating how the flight was allowed to refuel on its soil and whether any laws were broken. This incident has ignited broader conversations about international complicity in human rights abuses committed under the guise of immigration enforcement.
This is not a one-off mistake. It is part of a larger pattern where deportation becomes a covert operation shielded from oversight and public accountability.
Legal Protections Ignored
In a Boston courtroom, Judge Brian Murphy ruled that individuals must be given the opportunity to contest deportation to third countries, especially when such deportations involve dangerous or unfamiliar destinations. ICE ignored this ruling when it flew individuals to a military base near conflict zones. These actions sidestep due process and violate the constitutional protections that should apply to anyone on U.S. soil, regardless of citizenship status.
Deporting people mid-trial and abandoning them in countries they barely know strips away the very foundation of legal fairness. These are not bureaucratic mishaps. They are targeted, intentional acts of removal by force.
Beyond Policy: This Is Violence
When deportations involve people in shackles, stripped of legal representation, and sent to regions with active violence or unstable governments, we are no longer discussing policy. We are discussing violence. What ICE is doing cannot be rebranded with softer language. These flights resemble forced disappearances more than they do administrative processes. The goal is not justice. The goal is erasure.
For those of us who are queer, disabled, trans, or racialized, these stories are not abstract. We know what it means to live at the mercy of systems built to expel, not protect. We know how quickly state-sanctioned neglect turns into brutality. We have been targeted not for what we have done, but for who we are. The migrant experience is not far from our own. It is connected by the same structures of power that prioritize order over humanity.
A Pattern of Abuse
These flights are part of a broader campaign of dehumanization. Migrants have been deported to El Salvador, Venezuela, and other unstable regions with little warning or support. The March 2025 deportations of Venezuelans violated multiple international agreements. Some flights were carried out under the Alien Enemies Act, resurrected from centuries past to rationalize modern xenophobia.
Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the ACLU have all condemned these deportation practices. The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism has also called for immediate investigations into racial profiling and targeted removals.
From Fear to Action
These stories are devastating. But they must also be activating. This is why we say abolish ICE. Not reform it. Not retrain it. Abolish it. ICE is not broken. It is functioning exactly as designed. It was created to hunt, cage, and expel human beings. Giving it better rules will not change what it is.
What we need instead is a vision for justice that centers human dignity. We need a world where migration is not criminalized, where courts are not bypassed by military logistics, and where brown and Black people are not discarded across borders in the dark.
If we want to live in a country that honors truth, we cannot keep looking away from these flights. They are not footnotes in an immigration debate. They are acts of state violence. And every time we say nothing, we become part of the machinery that allows it to continue.
We must speak. We must resist. And we must demand abolition, not adjustment.
Because no human being should be flown into exile in the dead of night, just for existing.
Gemma Ortwerth 
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