WEBVTT - Tracking ICE Removal Flights 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:07.840 Also media, Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.680 We are joined once again by Gillian Brockel, who is 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.240 once again going to talk to us about the terrible 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.160 actually world of deportation flights, how we can track them, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.840 what we can learn from following them, and what it 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.600 tells us about the US's massive deportation regimes. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:28.520 Welcome back, Thanks for joining. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.640 Us, Thank you for having me, James, I appreciate it. 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:31.360 You're welcome. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.720 All right, let's get going here this week, got a 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.200 lot to go and there's been a lot of planes supporting. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.680 People deporting and removing. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:42.239 So we've really stopped saying deporting because we don't know 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:47.200 who hasn't gotten due process and who does and does 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.519 not actually belong to the country they're being sent to. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.680 Yeah, in many cases, it's more like what we saw 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.480 in the Extraordinary Rendition, very much so kind of war 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:58.360 and terry. I think that's pretty a better way. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.120 To describe it. Yeah, let's start out. Suppose was Djibouti. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:07.120 Yeah, so the eight men that were sent to Djibouti, 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.800 that's the flight I first tracked on May twentieth. They 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.760 were taken on a gulf Stream five operated by journey 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:18.520 aviation from Harling in Texas to Shannon Airport in Ireland, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.240 and I called the cops in Ireland to try and stop. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.280 It didn't work, and then they went to a US 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.480 military base in Djibouti, where judge had ordered them to 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.480 remain while he considered their case. So those men are 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.959 now in South Sudan, where Trump wanted to send them. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.039 They were held in Jibouti for six weeks. We know 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.880 from court filings that they were held inside a shipping 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.280 container in a far corner of the base, near a 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.360 burn pit where the trash for the base was burned, 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.480 and that smoke from this pit was getting into the 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.040 shipping container through the events and causing the men and 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.400 the ice Gars to cough and feel ill. There was 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.880 also an independent journalist named Alex Planck who got a 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.840 photo from a source on the base showing one of 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.799 the detainees shackled at the ankles and being escorted by 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.440 an ice guard to the restroom because the shipping container 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.480 did not have its own restroom. And he said that 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.000 most of the members of the military at the base 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.400 didn't even know that they were there. And you know 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.600 this base is generally considered like one of the worst 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.440 assignments to get when you're in the military. Plank said 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.520 he talked to a defense contractor who said that they 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.760 stopped sending their employees to that base. 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.160 Because it was just too terrible. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.480 So during the six week period, I and other flight 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.640 trackers we tracked five trips by round trip trips by 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.919 Journey Aviation jets to and from their base in Miami 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.760 and Djibouti, all traveling through Shannon. Presumably these were flights 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.120 that were swapping out ICE guards, but we really don't 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.839 know because ICE does not provide any information about its 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.640 air operations. Everything we know is through court filings and 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:19.600 through open source intelligence like the ADSP Exchange. Then on 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:24.240 July third, the Supreme Court cleared the way for these 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.360 third country removals, and this one specifically to South Sudan. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.560 All of US flight trekkers were watching the airspace really closely, 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.880 and we knew that one of Journey's jets was already 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.120 there on the ground in Jibooty, so that's what we 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.720 were looking for. But then on the evening of July fifth, 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.240 about two days later, DHS announced that it was done. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:50.120 They had removed the detainees to Sausudan via a military 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.880 flight earlier that day. And I have gone over the 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.920 air traffic data for that region six times on adsp Exchange, 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.440 and I haven't been able to spot this military flight. 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.520 And granted, Djibouti is a real ADSB dead zone, but 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.400 Juba isn't. Juba actually has quite good coverage, and you know, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.440 Addis Ababa also has very good coverage which they would 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.800 have had to fly over. So it's clear to me 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.279 that this military flight, if it happened as DHS claims, 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.320 probably flew the entire trip with its transponder turned off, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.360 which is something that the military can do, but it's 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:31.240 not standard. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.080 I think people would be. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.479 Surprised how rare actually it is for military flights to 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.560 do that, unless they're going on a combat or spy mission. 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.320 Most military aircraft fly with their transponders on. So if 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.200 you think about the Iran air strikes a couple of 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.720 weeks ago, the week before the air strikes, there were 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.160 thirty two Globe Masters and Strata tankers that flew from 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.040 the US to bases in Europe in a single night. That, 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:02.200 like every av geek was like whoa you know, and 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.720 we knew that that happened because they flew with their 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.719 transponders on, even though it made it really obvious that 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.560 some kind of military operation was probably imminent. 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.680 And then even during the. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.360 Air strikes, these aircraft would take off from Europe with 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.720 their transponders on, turn them off over the Mediterranean when 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.159 they were heading east, do whatever. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.640 They were doing, and then turn them back on when 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:27.480 they were headed back toward Europe. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.400 So even part of the combat mission, they still have 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:35.040 their transponders on. Yeah, So the fact that the flight 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.839 to Sasudan, which was not a combat or a spy mission, 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.120 appears to have flown the entire trip with its transponder 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.279 off is quite notable to me. And you know, I 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.600 see it as an extension of ISIS tactics on the 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.159 ground where they are covering their faces and refusing to 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.560 identify themselves. But I'm, you know, kind of surprised that 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.919 they got the military to go along with that. 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.760 Yeah, if it was really a military flight, right, like 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.400 it could be something kind of military adjacent like some 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:10.039 DHS or other government aircraft. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.040 Right, I mean, we don't know. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.200 Yeah, they said it happened by a military flight on 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:16.920 this date, but we don't know. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.320 Yeah, So on July. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.320 Eighth, the spokesperson for the South Sudanese government told the 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.400 AP that the men were there and that they were 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.400 quote under the care of the relevant authorities who are 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.039 screening them and ensuring their safety and well being. We 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.119 have no idea what that means. Does that mean they're 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.480 in prison there? Does that mean that they are, you know, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.400 going to be sent to their countries of origin as 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.080 they claimed at one point? We have no idea, yeah, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.600 And then just a few minutes ago we're recording this. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.159 On Beciel day, July fourteenth, the same plane that first 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.479 took these men to Djibouti was scheduled to take off 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.000 from El Paso for Shannon Airport in Ireland. Once again, 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.000 where it goes after that, Well, you might know by 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.320 the time you hear this, but right now it's anyone's guess. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.960 Yeah, it's baffling, like some of this stuff, like the 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.239 deportations to or no deportations, like rendition to South Sudan. 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.280 Right Like even Homan, who's the Trump's quote unquote borders 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.480 are or immigrations are, seems to be asserting that he 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.360 has no idea what happened to them once they've landed there, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.160 Like right, at one point they suggested that they didn't 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.800 think they would be detained, but like do they just 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.120 let them out into the street in I mean, when 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.480 people are released from custody in the United States, that's 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:37.040 exactly what they do, right, they let them out into 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.080 the street. Like, Yeah, a lot of volunteers here in 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.520 San Diego have spent a lot of time, you know, 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.720 because often people are released without Sometimes they're released without 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.760 religious garments, which are very important to them. Often they're 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.120 released without any sort of orientation. Where are they How 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.920 do they get where they're going? Can they afford a flight? 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.280 You know, how do they book a flight? Do they 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.600 have the relevant documents to book a flight? It's a 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.280 complete clusterfug And that's it in the US. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:04.640 Right, And I mean think about it. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.800 If you're like Laoshian or Vietnamese man in your fifties 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.200 or sixties, which a lot of these men are older gentlemen, 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:17.120 and you're what just like led out into the streets 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.360 of Juba, which is, you know, a big city. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.720 But there's a lot of instability in this country. Like 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.920 what are you gonna do? It's a big thinker like 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:29.200 what you know, Yeah, you're very vulnerable, very vulnerable, and you. 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.400 Probably don't have any material resources. It's not that you 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.240 can get your credit card, take out much of money 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.240 and fly somewhere else. Nor do these people really have 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.920 in many cases anywhere to go, right, Like, the reason 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.480 that they're being taken to third countries is generally that 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:46.120 they have withholding of removal or convention against torture claims 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:46.959 that they can't. 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.640 Be removed to their home countries. 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.080 Since we recorded this, we have found out that people 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.720 in South Sudan are being detained. According to an outlet 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.120 called The Daily with your South Sudanese outlet, those people 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.480 are incarcerated in South Suda. 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.360 Like the man for Me and Mar. 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.400 You know, they're arguing that, you know, I suppose, oh, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.640 we can't send him to me and Mar, But if 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.640 you're going to send him to another place where he's 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.440 likely to be tortured, is it really any different? And 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.720 also they are sending people to me and Mar. They 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:19.920 have reported people to Me and Marr in the last 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:21.720 few months, as you James have reported. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:22.760 Yeah, that's right. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.240 They've sent more than a dozen people to Memr and 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.280 seem to be continuing, at least they have not said 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.840 they will stop. And most of those people were directly 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.160 detained by military intelligence and MEMMA when they landed, So 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.160 those people will have been tortured. And yeah, this this 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.719 other person who had withholding it from removal doesn't. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.160 Mean that he will not be tortured. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.960 I mean, if we look at like migrants making the 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.800 journey to the United States are routinely kidnapped, tortured, ransom killed, 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.760 sexually assaulted. I've heard of all of these firsthand. I 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.480 don't suspect it will be any different. You know, once 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.439 they're outside the US again, extremely vulnerable. And we saw 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.439 this a lot in title forty two, when the Trump 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.160 administration and the Biden administration would just boot people back 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.320 over the border. Often they would do lateral transfers, so 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.440 you enter in the San Diego sector, they drop you 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.520 in the Laredo sector or somewhere further east. And those 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.240 people that have zero network right and often don't speak 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:23.040 Spanish and are extremely vulnerable. It's pretty much the worst 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:24.000 case outcome here. 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.680 Well, unfortunately, in the next part, I'm about to tell 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.280 you about how all of that is about to increase exponentially. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.960 Yeah, talking of things that are increasing, actually increasing. We 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.160 still just have to do two advertisements every show, so 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:43.760 we'll get me one of them now, all right, we 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:44.960 are back. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:46.320 I hope you enjoyed those adverts here. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.360 We had some new ones for like a religiously sansient gold, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:54.240 which I'm very exciting about. This is one thing Jesus loved. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.560 It was money change. There's a lot of stuff in 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:58.440 the Bible about that. 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.800 I think silvers actually, right. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.560 Yeah, I think big precious metals. Guy, love to see 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:10.440 currency speculation. Okay, let's talk about Djibouti, a place where 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.960 the United States has a big base that it is 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.640 using for housing people that it's renditioning to other countries. 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:19.360 Yeah. 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.280 So when we first recorded this, we were just doing 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:27.080 a Djibouti update about the men who were renditioned to 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.000 South Sudan, and we knew at the time that there 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:35.840 was another Journey Aviation jet about to take off. And 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.640 now we know what happened with that flight. It landed 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:44.920 again in Djibouti, and two days later DHS announced that 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.599 it had renditioned five more people to the country of Swatini, 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.000 which I've been to. I reported there in twenty eleven, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.640 I spoke to teachers who were starving because they hadn't 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.360 been paid for eight months by the king, who you 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.360 know is the last absolute monarch in Africa. And you know, 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.280 the teachers that I spoke to were terrified to disappear 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.240 into the prisons that these five men have now been 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:16.880 renditioned to. I worked with another independent journalist named Alex Plank, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:22.640 and we published a story using OSIN to prove that 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.520 that journey flight to Djibouti was carrying the five men 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.960 and from there they were transported by a C seventeen 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.960 US military you know, huge aircraft that flew with its 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:39.200 transponders off from Djibouti to Swatini to deliver these men. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.920 Seems like that is the emerging standard for these military 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.720 deportation flights, right at least for the final leg. 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.280 Yeah, so the last week has been pretty crazy. 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:52.120 Yeah. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:57.800 An Omni seven sixty seven did a removal flight to 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.040 a couple places in Africa, and at least two and 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:07.400 perhaps three large military jets also did removal flights from 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.120 the United States, landing in Gemo just for fun, and 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.760 landing in different countries in Africa. Now, the interesting thing 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:22.239 about that and about journey is that until this past week, 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.880 Africa and Central Asia have really been the purview of 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.880 this other ice air operator that's really gone under the radar, 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:38.000 but I think it's possible might be doing some things 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:43.200 that are even more sinister than your usual ice air flights. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:50.000 So this company is called Aircraft Transport Service. They are 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.040 Florida base, but they are now all of their aircraft 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.640 are based in Mesa, Arizona, which is an ICE hub, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.240 and they're at the end of their five year contracting 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:06.079 these special high risk removals to dangerous areas or with 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:13.160 you know, allegedly dangerous migrant passengers. Their flights really began 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:20.000 to spike in mid February up until July fourth. They 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.000 have five private jets that they lease from their owners 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.360 to operate these flights. And I've looked at all of 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.960 their flights and it's not clear if they are doing 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:38.000 any flights that aren't ICE, but certainly at least most 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:44.320 of their business is ICE. And so I've tracked nineteen 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.040 different trips, different ice removal trips that they've done since 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:55.520 February eighteenth, and most of these have gone to countries 0:14:55.560 --> 0:15:01.280 in Africa, and that really began to surge around April 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:07.480 twenty ninth, And what I've noticed is that on June 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.040 twenty six, New York Times published a story about, you know, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.960 the Trump administration is pressuring all of these countries to 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:20.760 accept more of these third country removals, and there's a 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.800 lot of overlap between that list of countries and the 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.800 countries that ATS has been landing in for the last 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:34.840 four months. There is a pair of flights in particular 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.760 that I find pretty alarming. They went out within thirty 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.760 minutes of each other on May twentieth, which was the 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.360 same day that the flight to Djibouti, when the flight 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:54.200 that was supposed to go to Sausudan and these flights, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.520 so these flights started doing their usual ice removal route, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.320 which is, you know, MESA, maybe we stop in Fort 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.840 Worth to pick up more migrants, then you do a 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.800 fuel stop in San Juan, you do another fuel stop 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.360 in Senegal, and then you go wherever you're going to 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.640 go in West Africa. These flights, thirty minutes apart from 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:22.760 each other, flew directly from San Juan to Mauritanium and 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.280 we're on the ground for thirty minutes, and then from 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.520 there flew to Senegal. You know, I can't prove anything 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.520 because ICE does not communicate about its air operations at all, 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:38.880 you know, unless they feel like it because they want 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.760 to brag about it, or because you know, they're ordered 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:46.880 to bite courts. These flights to me seem particularly alarming 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.640 as possible flights where there could have been third country 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:56.320 removals that we don't even know about. And Marissa Cavas, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.480 she's an independent reporter who has a site called the 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.280 Handbass Get. At the end of April, she reported that 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.879 there was a third country removal that hasn't gotten a 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.560 lot of attention, and I don't know why, because it's 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.560 really messed up. A third country removal of an Iraqi 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.080 man to Rwanda, which happened on April fourth, after he 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.840 legally migrated to the US. He was accused of murder 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.800 in Iraq. There's incontroversial evidence proving that he did not 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.200 commit this crime. He wasn't even in Iraq when it happened, 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:36.120 but the Biden administration continued with his removal. And because 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.320 he couldn't go back to Iraq because he would have 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.520 been executed, they had been looking for a safe third 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.400 country for him. They did not finish that when they 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.600 handed the keys over to the Trump administration. So on 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.960 April fourth, he was removed to Rwanda. And he has 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.280 a lot of media contacts and no one has heard 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.919 from him. I have not seen a report him, you know. 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.280 I tried to contact his family, was unsuccessful. I contacted 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:10.800 his attorney and didn't hear back. So ATS operated a flight. 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:15.879 It began at about eleven thirty on April second to 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.560 this Fort Worth Airport that's right next to an ICED 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:25.040 attention center San Juan, Senegal, and then landed in Nairobi. 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:30.240 Now Nairobi is not Kigali in Rwanda, but they're only 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.720 about an hour apart, and if you look at the 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.320 flight data, the aircraft at that point had been operating 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.080 for about twenty three hours straight, which is stretching the 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.080 boundaries of legality, even if you. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.360 Have two crews. So there's a lot of. 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:50.919 Reasons why ICE might have taken him to Nairobi and 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.800 then done something else for the last leg I think 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.399 the most likely explanation is that the crew had to 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.880 rest and I decided that they didn't want to wait, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.600 So they may have chartered a local puddle jumper to 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.879 take them, you know, over the lake to Kika. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.440 It's pretty common, I think to when I've flow into Kikali. 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.560 I think I've stopped in Kinshasa and Nairobi. I don't 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.360 know if it's a big planes can't land there. It's 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.480 just the kind of the way it works. Fewer people 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.239 are flying to Kigali directly from the USO Europe than 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.480 are going to places like King Shasta, Nairobi, so it 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.840 might just be that they don't do direct flights. But yeah, 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.480 I don't think I've ever done a direct big plane 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:33.640 flight right. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.720 It seems that the only aircraft going in and out 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.880 of there are going to Nairobi and Kampala, and from 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:41.520 there you connect somewhere else. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:43.600 It's a pretty small airport, so. 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:45.760 So yeah, that's ATS. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.520 They've kind of flown under the radar because global x 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:54.240 is doing so much more in terms of numbers. But 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.840 I think it's quite possible that ATS's mission for the 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:03.400 past few months has been to sort of pilot program 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:08.320 small amounts of third country removals to these different countries, 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:13.280 just like omar Amin. Because after omar Amin was sent 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.000 to Rwanda, the State Department sent a cable that Mrsakabas 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.520 obtained saying, oh man, it totally worked. This is great. 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.240 Let's send ten more people. 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.600 At a cost to one hundred thousand per head, right 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:30.359 right again, maybe suggesting carcerational one hundred grand is going 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.400 to cover more than your paperwork, you know. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.000 Right, And just to be clear about, you know, the 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.639 cost all of these military flights that have been flying 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.600 around Africa now doing isis dirty work. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:43.840 Those cost about. 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:48.480 Twenty eight five hundred dollars an hour to operate, and 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.879 of course cost is the least important thing here. But 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.439 my god, you know, for an administration that claims to 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:58.560 care about government. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.400 Waste, yeah, this is ridiculous. 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.359 We don't know how much they're paying people in South 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.080 Sudan or the monarchy of a Swatini. We don't know 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.719 what they're sort of bribing these people to accept. I 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.560 just checked with Mauritania. It's currently a Level three State 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.080 Department travel warning telling people to reconsider travel due to 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:17.200 terrorism and crime. 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:18.639 That's why we're sending people. 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:24.320 I have explained the many and varied human rights abuses 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.600 that have happened in Mauritania on the show before, so 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.080 you can go back and listen to other episodes. Do 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.800 you want to want to hear about those hundreds of Mauritanians, 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:36.600 if not thousands, entered the United States in the tail 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.879 end of the Bid administration. I'm thinking like it was 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.520 late summer of twenty twenty three when I recall seeing 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:45.679 many of them. Just in my workdown at the border, 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.800 we often get very hot, like September's octobers in southern California, 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.760 and a few times I've come across Mauritanian people who 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.399 were in really bad shape just during those sort of 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.359 hot months, and it's sort of stuck with me that, 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.119 like some of the stories they had were horrific treat 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.479 and I'm sure that it's some of those people who 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:07.439 are now being sent back and just the fact that 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.720 they tried to leave will have made things even worse 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:11.040 for them. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:17.520 So yeah, I mean, these flights going to Mauritania, which 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.000 includes one of the military flights last week, you know, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:25.280 slavery still exists in Mauritania. There's a minimum of ninety 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.000 thousand people there who are still enslaved. That's the low 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.560 end of the estimates. And you know, it's been illegal 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:37.080 since nineteen eighty one, but the practice is really protected 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:42.760 by a culture of secrecy, not just among Mauritanian elites, 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.920 but the multinational corporations who are embedded there and will 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.879 just kind of look the other way while they're you know, 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.800 extract natural resources with people in the minds that like 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.679 they're not really going to check if they're enslaved or not. So, 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:02.440 you know, maybe we're doing third country deportations and removals there. 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.639 Maybe we're just sending Mauretanians back to a really horrible place. 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.359 Yeah, and it doesn't humanly matter, right, We're sending people 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.280 back to a place where they are very likely to 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.679 be tortured, to be as you say, like faust, to 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:21.200 unfree labor, to be incarcerated without having committed a crime. 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:22.880 Doesn't really matter whether people want. 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:23.359 It's fucked. 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.320 The embassy doesn't let us people drive around Mauritania at night, 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:28.600 have to be in the capital, They can only walk 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:31.800 in certain places. Give an idea of like how this 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:36.960 double standard is applied. Talking of multinational corporations, I would. 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:41.000 Love to hear from. So let's do that now. 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.120 All right, we are back and we were talking about 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.080 the safety of private jets. Some of these flights have 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:55.880