Airplanes Are Today’s Deportation Trains; How Can We Slow Them Down?

Vermont’s airport is finally moving toward providing some legal support for the shocking number of detainees who are being abducted here. It happened after a long evening of impassioned pleas by dozens of citizens on August 6, a month after the story broke about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s use of commercial flights to transport more than 450 detainees between January and June this year.

Brave activists have been showing up in the wee hours of the morning to bear witness, speak to detainees when possible, and try to prevent people from being taken away against their will. In the absence of due process, the ICE actions amount to human trafficking. The activists once succeeded in stopping three people from being boarded onto a plane. The next time, ICE used a private side door, which was captured on video. Since the airport’s position had been to treat ICE like any other law enforcement agency in public areas, this attempt at secrecy resulted in packed halls at the Airport Commission meeting August 6.

Why do we even have detainees in the obscure state of Vermont? We are the second smallest in the union, where the Trump administration has generally turned a blind eye rather than stop the flow of milk through New England. But because the state has a contract to house detainees, ICE scoops them up fast elsewhere and dumps them as far as possible from their lawyers, families and communities—first in Vermont, then via the Burlington Airport to Louisiana and Texas or beyond. Less than half the people being shipped out of Vermont had access to a lawyer, according to Vermont Public Radio. Three widely covered cases—Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Kseniia Petrova—showed that, when ICE impulsively pounces on people and shackles them, judges set people free because they were denied due process.

The state has drawn some lines in cooperating with ICE, in addition to having the most outspoken and effective congressional delegation fighting the current madness. Gov. Phil Scott, one of the dying breed of open-minded Republicans, refused a request to delegate some of our National Guard to ICE to do paperwork. At the Airport Commission, Courtney O’Connor, a Montpelier attorney who has worked internationally, quoted a letter from the governor which stated, “Our administration will support efforts to ensure that those detained in our state are treated fairly and afforded full due process guaranteed under the law.”

He implied that it’s ridiculous for the airport to treat ICE like any other law enforcement agency, because they don’t behave like one.

The moment is ripe to look for every possible means for airports around the country to resist collaboration with ICE’s unconscionable practices. Airports are in a tough spot, because they are federally regulated and, to some extent, funded. But a recent court case brought by Vermont and 19 other states established that, at least for now, funding cannot be withheld from states which refuse to cooperate with “immigration enforcement.”

“The airport, at a minimum, has a responsibility to let the public know what’s happening inside these walls, and on the tarmac,” said Julie Macuga, a key activist. For inspiration, we can look to the King County Airport in Washington State, where activists have interrupted buses with banners as a last resort, and to the Connecticut attorney general who challenged Avelo Airlines’s practices. These strategies may or may not be effective in the long run, but at least they show resistance.

The full cast of Vermont characters was present at the Airport Commission, three minutes at a time: the eloquent professor who investigated human rights abuses in Central America, the young activists who have assembled the data and aren’t afraid of late nights and early mornings, the former state representative with grey locks and strong feelings, the lawyer who sets up guardianship for children of parents who might be deported, the uneasy elder naturalized citizen, the fiery Democratic Socialist, the household name Palestinian activist, the troubled veteran who fought for democracy, the professional whose refugee client checks in every few hours, the humanitarian aid worker, and many others. Not one spoke in favor of ICE.

“If we don’t stand up, who is going to?” they asked.

“Why is the airport complying?”

“Is this the way for families to be treated in Vermont or anywhere?”

“Stop collaborating with this criminal deportation machine.”

“This is incremental fascism, and we have to say no to it.”

“Our state is always brave enough to stand up for what’s right.”

“I don’t know what other airports are doing, but we need to be first.”

Some made specific legal points. Courtney O’Connor stressed that Vermont officials are at risk of civil litigation and criminal prosecution if they collude with constitutional violations. Although as an attorney she has visited countless prisons around the world, “I’ve never heard in my entire career heard of [airport] side doors being used in a democracy to protect government officials who were acting feloniously from detection.”

Saul Steinzor, a criminal prosecutor for 32 years, emphasized that ICE isn’t like other Vermont law enforcement agencies who seek evidence carefully for probable cause or reasonable suspicion. No other agency uses masks and pounces on people in the dark. Over two-thirds of detainees have no criminal record whatever. He implied that it’s ridiculous for the airport to treat ICE like any other law enforcement agency, because they don’t behave like one.

Jeanne Keller of Burlington, a longtime community activist, said the commission was going through a typical process with a controversial issue. Stage one is “We can’t do that,” followed by “Let’s ask if we can do that,” and finally, “We’re going to do it, let’s figure out how.”

By the end of the evening, the airport director Nic Longo was ready to say that he’d explore one of the activists’ key suggestions. Vermont Public Radio reported that “[Mr. Longo] is working with Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak to address people’s concerns about ICE at the airport. He indicated they are looking into activists’ suggestion that they establish a special position to screen whether detainees are able to exercise their legal rights. ‘We as a city and I as an airport director are committed to trying to find a facilitation to help people with representation when they fly through this airport,’ Longo said.”

One activist made a stronger statement: “We’ll keep showing up, so they know they’re not alone and we won’t allow them to be disappeared.”

The activists are there at 4:00 am ET and sometimes before. What about the rest of us?