NEW: ICE’s Eswatini flight went through US base in Djibouti; Americans stationed there are angry
Details of how the five men got to Eswatini have not been previously reported.
Note: This story was written and reported with Alex Plank. He has published it simultaneously here.
When a Gulfstream V carrying eight migrants landed in Djibouti from the United States on May 21, it seemed like an unplanned stop, the result of a judge ordering DHS to stop their removal to South Sudan while he heard their case. Personnel at Camp Lemonnier, the US military outpost adjacent to the airport, were angered by the DHS guards’ treatment of the men and by being roped into the scheme to dump them in South Sudan, according to a source at the base. Still, it seemed unplanned.
The same jet landed in Djibouti again this week, where five men and their ICE guards transferred to a military aircraft that landed hours later in Eswatini—a landlocked kingdom in southern Africa that none of the men has ever been to and where they are now imprisoned.
That was planned. Or, as one Eswatini official put it, the operation was “the result of months of robust, high-level engagements.”
The source on the base is livid, calling the flights “illegal deportation.”
“I think it’s bullshit. This administration is a joke and an embarrassment,” said the source, who asked to not be identified to protect their job. The source said they were glad they weren’t home in the US right now, because they might end up being targeted by ICE.
Details of how the five men got to Eswatini have not been previously reported.
On July 14, the Gulfstream left El Paso, where there is an ICE detention center, arriving in Djibouti the next day at 8:01 p.m. local time, according to flight data.
Hours later, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin announced five more migrants had been removed to a third country. She didn’t say how the men got there, but a video later posted to an Eswatini Facebook group shows a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III with the registration number 02-1107 taxiing down a runway that matches satellite images of King Mswati III International Airport.
There is no transponder data for the C-17’s flights to and from Eswatini, indicating it flew with its transponder turned off. Flight data shows it flying over Iraq on July 14, the day before the Eswatini trip; on July 16, the day after the trip, it is parked in Qatar. No other US-registered aircraft landed in Eswatini on July 15, and none of the other charter aircraft to which ICE has access traveled to the region in the available timeframe.
A satellite image of Camp Lemonnier on the morning of July 15 shows the presence of two C-17s (the image at the top of this story), which do not appear on satellite images taken on July 8 or July 13.
Camp Lemonnier, located on the Horn of Africa, is a difficult deployment for service members and defense contractors. Djibouti is one of the hottest places on the planet, and personnel live in shipping containers with hard floors, a twin bed and a sink. Their “offices” are in tents; in their free time, there is little to do for entertainment on or off the base.
In May, the presence of the first group of detainees and their ICE guards went unnoticed at first, the source said, because they were cordoned off in an area on the western edge of the camp. But unusual restrictions and increased security soon called attention to them, and annoyed personnel.
“Listen, we shut our camp down for a group that isn’t supposed to be here…their timeline was 24-48 hours…we are on week 5?” someone complained in a group chat that included both military and contractors, according to screenshots the source shared. “We can’t continue to shut or hinder our operations…Fuck’m.”
DHS staff used the special forces gym, despite being civilians, the source said, providing a photo of an ICE employee identification card left at the gym’s front desk. A LinkedIn profile for a man with the same name describes himself as a federal agent for DHS in New Caney, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
In court filings, Justice Department officials complained to district judge Brian Murphy about the harsh conditions the guards were enduring in Djibouti, claiming some of them had become ill from fumes coming from a nearby burn pit.
Group chat messages corroborate this. “Do I have any med personnel that can evaluate my DHS guy on the west end of the camp?” a person the source described as the camp lead asked in late May. “Sorry it’s late.”
“For what?” someone asked.
“Three medical, all different fields,” the camp lead said. “All I got was ‘he is feeling ill.’ Guess it’s the second guy to get sick watching the other individuals.”
Conditions were, of course, even harsher for the detainees. They were housed together in a cramped shipping container ordinarily used as a conference room, where they were also exposed to the fumes. There was no plumbing or natural light, since, the source said, the only window was on the door to the conference room and a Navy Police truck sat idling under a tent in front the door the entire time the detainees were there. Satellite images confirm the presence of the truck and tent in the area of the base pictured in a photograph provided by the source, showing the outside of the room where he said the detainees were held.
The source also provided a photo they took of one of the detainees, shackled at the ankles and being escorted by a guard to a neighboring building with a toilet.
“I swore an oath to the constitution, and this violates that,” the source said. “That’s something I won’t ever protect, no matter how much it’ll cost.”
In the six weeks the men were held on the base, Florida-based charter Journey Aviation, which operated the Gulfstream jet, made five more round-trip journeys between the US and Djibouti, according to flight data. Information from court filings and the source suggest at least some of these flights were to swap out ICE guards. From June 17 to July 7, Journey had a Gulfstream parked at the base round the clock, seemingly on standby, awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court.
In the end, the detainees didn’t take the Gulfstream to their final destination. On July 3, the Supreme Court cleared the way for their removal, and two days later DHS announced the mission had been accomplished – on July 4 of all days – via military aircraft.
Archive flight data yields no sign of an American military aircraft near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, from July 3 through July 5. The aircraft appears to have flown with its transponder turned off, which is permissible but often limited to combat or intelligence missions. For example, dozens of military transport aircraft flew across the Atlantic with their transponders on in the days before the Iran strikes, despite making it obvious that a military action was probably imminent; even during the strikes, fuel tankers flew only part of their missions with their transponders turned off.
South Sudanese news outlet The Dawn said the men there are being incarcerated. The State Department describes prison conditions in South Sudan as “harsh and life-threatening.”
A price sheet on the federal government’s procurement website for the flight broker ICE uses, CSI Aviation, lists the cost for a Gulfstream V charter at $8,619 an hour.
Military aircraft used for deportations and removals are even more expensive, with a C-17 costing $28,500 an hour, according to a January Reuters report.
“For being a party who wants to stop government waste, they sure do love spending all this extra money causing all this extra waste,” the source at Camp Lemonnier said.
The king of Eswatini – Africa’s last absolute monarch – has ruled since 1986. One of the writers of this story visited in 2011 to report on public school teachers who hadn’t been paid for more than six months, while the king prepared to purchase a $20 million luxury jet and take another teenaged wife. Teachers were scared to speak publicly about their plight, lest they disappear into one of the tiny country’s 11 prisons.
While reporting this week, the other writer of this story received this message from a liSwati citizen: “Keep in mind this is a dictatorship state. I can even mysteriously disappear for answering this message.”
The emaSwati are most afraid of their prisons – the place where ICE just sent five men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos.
Lucky Lukhele, a liSwati activist living in exile, told CNN more arrivals from the US are expected.
ICE did not respond to questions about its third-country removal flights or its presence in Djibouti. Details of the deal the Trump administration made with Eswatini, like so much of ICE’s activities, are secret.
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