This Weeks in ICE Flights, Nov. 15-21

Gillian Brockell

22 Nov 2025 — 2 min read

The single, very bad photo I was able to get of the plane ICE used to remove Ukrainians earlier this week, which I have tried to improve with some arty editing.

On Monday, as my American Prospect story about Avelo's dangerous flights rattled around the internet, I was sitting in a parking lot near Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, hoping to catch a glimpse of an incoming ICE flight.

While I waited, I found out the passengers onboard were Ukrainians being sent back to a warzone, representing a new low in the Trump administration's deportation machine.

A few hours later, when I'd gone home and gone to sleep, another ICE flight briefly stopped at BWI – this one holding, among others, Melissa Chan, a local small-business owner and mother of four, who had been taken by ICE a few days earlier. Chan came to the US on a green card when she was 11 and was now being removed to Vietnam based on a 24-year-old theft conviction.

We know Trump's (and Stephen Miller's and Tricia McLaughlin's) claims of going after the "worst of the worst" are bullshit, because DHS's own data show 74 percent of people currently in ICE custody have no criminal convictions. But let us also acknowledge that immigrants convicted of crimes, including violent crimes, are not monsters.

People like me are allowed to fuck up when we're younger and move on. We're allowed complexity and redemption arcs, while so many others spend the rest of their lives dismissed and vilified by broader society, the courts, and now, ICE.

The truth is Trump and his goons are going after the easiest of easy: people who show up to their ICE check-ins on time, with all their paperwork, in hopes their compliance will be rewarded with a chance to stay with their families for one more year. Many of whom come from countries, like Laos and Vietnam, that for years refused to issue ex-pat travel documents but are now under the thumb of Trump's tariffs.

I hope Chan is safe in Hanoi, where she arrived early Wednesday. I hope every night she is separated from her 7-year-old is a restless one for all who had a hand in separating them.

RECENT ICE FLIGHT HEADLINES

The American Prospect: Avelo's sloppy, dangerous deportation flights

My story for TAP on Avelo's failed effort to make money by working with ICE, resulting in numerous safety incidents, long delays, cruel treatment and at least one emergency landing.

Baltimore Banner: Can Maryland kick Avelo out of BWI over ICE flights?

Activists and lawmakers spoke with the Banner about their effort to cancel Avelo's contract with Baltimore's airport, which the state of Maryland owns.

Baltimore Banner: Hagerstown mother and nail salon owner set for deportation to Vietnam

COLLABORATORS: WHO HELPED ICE AIR THIS WEEK

Airlines: Avelo Airlines, Eastern Airlines/Eastern Air Express, GlobalX Airlines, Journey Aviation, Key Lime Air/Denver Air Connection, Omni Air International, the US Coast Guard.

Enforcement: Akima Global Services, GEO Group

Logistics & Servicing: CSI Aviation, GEO Group, Million Air, Signature Aviation, Skyservice.