The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a lawsuit seeking information about the country’s airline used for deportation flights — information it says will be key for pricing together a “road map” for how the incoming Trump administration will carry out promised mass deportations.
The public records lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeks details about ICE Air, which was used to remove some 140,000 people last year.
A statement from the group expresses “concerns that ICE’s infrastructure, including its air operations network, could be expanded to assist the Trump administration in its efforts to deport more than 11 million people from the United States.”
“For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and FOIA litigation has been a central part of our roadmap,” Kyle Virgien, an attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.
“A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation.”
On the campaign trail, Trump said he would carry out the largest mass deportation in American history, targeting the estimated 12 million people illegally living in U.S.