ICE Uses Celebrities’ Loophole to Hide Deportation Flights

Celebrities like Taylor Swift have long used a little-known Federal Aviation Administration program to shield their private jets’ flight records from public view. Now ICE is using the program to hide information about its deportation flights.

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To obscure its planes, which ship immigrants out of the country on deportation flights, ICE is taking advantage of a long-standing program created by the private jet lobby. (Josue Decavele / Getty Images)


For years, the country’s rich and famous have used a little-known Federal Aviation Administration program to shield their private jets’ flight records from public view — among them Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Spielberg.

Now this decades-old program has a new client: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

To obscure its planes, which ship immigrants out of the country on deportation flights, ICE is taking advantage of a longstanding program created by the private jet lobby, the Lever can confirm. For years, the scheme has allowed celebrities and Wall Street CEOs to partially block their flight data from public view.

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