More detainees expected at airport under Trump immigration plan
King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Georgetown is becoming a local focal point in President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration deportation policy.
The stepped-up sweeps and detentions around the country performed by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began soon after Trump took office a few weeks ago. Since then, more detainees have reportedly been seen in shackles and chains at Boeing Field, volunteer observers told King5.
The deportation flights going in and out of Boeing Field are nothing new. Despite claims by city and county leaders to protect immigrant communities, the federal removals have occurred for more than a decade making Georgetown a connecting point in a network of private air charters contracted by ICE to deport people, also known as “ICE Air.”
A 2019 University of Washington Center for Human Rights report detailed the use of the county airport for deportations. It found that from 2010-19 more than 34,000 people had left Boeing Field on deportation flights to destinations closer to the southern border, such as El Paso, Texas, before removal from the country.
In reaction to the findings, King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order to stop county cooperation with the deportation flights and renegotiate future leases for air services companies to prohibit them from assisting in deportations. This pushed the deportation flights to Yakima while the matter was taken up in the courts. A 2023 U.S. District Court ruling found Constantine’s order discriminated against the U.S. government and allowed the flights to resume. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in December.
The county executive issued a revised order that doesn’t prevent the flights but limits the use of county resources beyond what is required by federal law. The revised order also called for transparency. The airport now offers a conference room where the public can observe deportation flights via video feed. Separately, a flight log is posted at the bottom of the airport’s “About” page.
Observers with human rights groups routinely watch the deportations from the observation room at Boeing Field. A 2024 ProPublica report called it “arguably America’s best real-time window into our vast network of privately run deportation flights, a system that has generated troubling reports of passenger mistreatment and in-flight emergencies.”