Another look at 'ICE Air: Inside America's secret deportation network'

[00:00:00]Few cities felt the push by ICE to remove detainees quickly more than Minneapolis, Minnesota. It happened there so quickly that our investigative team here in Denver noticed an increasing level of frustration with federal judges overseeing those cases.

[00:00:14]>> Investigative reporter Chris Vanderveen and producer Chris Hansen spent months tracking a federal effort to move thousands from city to city using some of the nation's busiest airports. This is a portion of their documentary, ICE Air.

[00:00:28]>> There is little doubt that in early 2020 in in one of the coldest of America's largest cities >> They were just sitting in their car.

[00:00:36]>> long simmering tensions over immigration boiled over.

[00:00:40]>> They couldn't get the first person, so they came over here and smashed [screaming] the window and pulled them out.

[00:00:44]>> federal leaders tell it, Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis did what it was supposed to do.

[00:00:51]>> I have announced effective immediately we will draw down 700 people effective today.

[00:00:58]>> Arrested, detained, transferred. ICE did this by our count 2,549 [music] times, arguing in court filings its main processing facility located in Minnesota's Fort Snelling was meant solely for short-term confinement while detainees awaited transfer to other ICE detention facilities.

[00:01:19]We identified 128 flights in and out of Minneapolis during the height of Metro Surge. Flights in from states like Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

[00:01:32]Flights out almost always to one place, El Paso, Texas.

[00:01:40]>> We do think it is a part of a a planned effort to get them out of state as quickly as possible.

[00:01:45]>> Minnesota-based attorney Brian Plaster marveled and bristled at the pace of the departures.

[00:01:50]>> It's almost immediate in many cases. You know, we have people picked up off the street, you know, on the way to work, from their home, um, from dropping children off to school, and they're taken, put into an ice vehicle ice vehicle, taken right to MSP, processed, and put onto a flight to Texas within within a matter of hours.

[00:02:08]>> That was absolutely what happened to Thi Doan Vuong.

[00:02:28]Less than 24 hours after her arrest, ICE put her on a plane. We [music] found it, GXA 6142, Minneapolis to Omaha. From Omaha, it continued south to El Paso under a slightly different flight number, GXA 6143.

[00:02:43]Days later, ICE sent her to Houston. She assumed she was bound for Vietnam.

[00:02:47]Instead, late one night, after a judge ordered a bond hearing, ICE released her. She then waited in the dark alone for hours before her family finally picked her up.

[00:03:09]>> I definitely think that there is, um, a lot of strategy on ICE's part [music] to make it more difficult for people to exercise their rights.

[00:03:18]>> Jenny Pasquarella is an attorney based in Washington state. She says in order to understand what she believes is taking place, you must first understand the concept of habeas corpus.

[00:03:29]>> Habeas corpus is a Latin term that means [music] show me the body.

[00:03:33]So, it is a really core element of our legal system. [music] It allows a person to say, "I'm being held unlawfully."

[00:03:40]Government, or whoever is uh holding that person, [music] respond and justify the legality of this detention.

[00:03:48]>> She's talking about due process. And yes, no less than the US Supreme Court has said even people born outside of the US remain entitled to it.

[00:03:58]As the ICE flights increased, so too did the habeas filings seeking due process.

[00:04:04]>> So, it's really having an important role in this moment. Lawyers all over the country have stepped [music] up to learn how to do habeas cases, file them, and fight for the rights of people who are being unlawfully detained.

[00:04:17]>> Take Minnesota. In a federal court database, we found six habeas filings in the first four months of 2024, four during the same period in 2025, in 2026, 1,175.

[00:04:31]>> I have seen some clients that have gone to four or five different states before hiring me and me being able to get an order precluding their continued transfer until we until we resolve the habeas petition.

[00:04:45]>> Critically, when it comes to habeas petitions, each must be filed in the state where the detainee is held.

[00:04:50]>> So, if my client in Colorado, for example, is transferred to Mississippi, I'm not licensed [music] to practice in the courts in Mississippi and I'd have to find another attorney there to help me and [music] that complicates the process a lot.

[00:05:02]>> ICE maintains it moves detainees based on bed space, medical needs, and other factors. A spokesperson also said it is working rapidly and overtime to remove.

[00:05:12]But a judge appointed by President Trump said in February 2026, the quick ICE flights out of Minnesota all but extinguish a detainee's access to counsel and create barriers that make it difficult, if not impossible, for attorneys to effectively represent their clients.

[00:05:29]>> I do think there are some people are being sent to other states in order to frustrate legal [music] defenses and their ability to to fight their immigration cases.

[00:05:39]>> And where ICE sends someone matters. In early 2026, a federal appeals court ruling covering Mississippi, Louisiana, and yes, Texas, expanded the federal government's authority to hold some immigrants without bond hearings.

[00:05:52]Lawyers we spoke to say it raises questions about where detainees are sent.

[00:05:58]>> That part I think also is [music] intentional to move people to places that are more hostile courts and are less likely to release them.

[00:06:10]>> Thank you for flying with many airlines at Minneapolis International Airport.

[00:06:15]>> It's the same process the whole time.

[00:06:18]They pull up, they park at Signature Aviation over there, the private jet terminal.

[00:06:23]The convoy arrives, they pull up the steps so the people can get on and off.

[00:06:28]They do a security pat down and they are led onto the airplane, they hobble on.

[00:06:33]The airplane's about to touch down here.

[00:06:35]>> Nick Benson documented most of the ICE flights in and out of MSP in Minneapolis during Metro surge.

[00:06:41]>> We can't trust the federal government to provide transparency on what's going on.

[00:06:45]>> And so he saw on the ground what we found in judicial rulings on hundreds of habeas petitions filed on behalf of people arrested in Minnesota and sent to Texas.

[00:06:55]We found these words to be common: immediately return and effectuate release forthwith. We counted at least 288 detainees ordered returned to Minnesota by federal judges.

[00:07:09]>> It's up to us the people and the press to document what's going on at these airports um because this is isn't just a Minnesota problem.

[00:07:19]>> Looking for proof that not all removals are lawful, we found El Paso bound AWI 7181.

[00:07:26]We saw 24 board.

[00:07:28]The following day, at least one of the 24 headed back. Using data from the deportation data project, we found him on Minneapolis bound Tyson 46 and he wasn't alone.

[00:07:40]We counted 32 detainees returned that day, each the subject of a judicial order ordering them back to Minnesota.

[00:07:47]>> We're on a tempo where there are two flights a week now down from two or three flights a day during the peak of metro surge.

[00:07:55]>> Okay.

[00:07:56]>> Benson is still documenting the flights even as they've slowed. As for ICE, by spring of 2026, it was ordered by a judge not to remove within 72 hours of arrest. The judge wrote in this ruling and >> in no uncertain terms due process is not a game of keepaway.

[00:08:18]>> And Chris Vandenberg joins us now. Um, let let's talk about the judges. Are they taking notice of that here in Colorado?

[00:08:25]>> Yeah, you're absolutely seeing what we noticed in that a flurry of habeas petitions that were filed in Minnesota.

[00:08:31]There is a similar huge massive increase in the amount of habeas petitions that have been filed here in Colorado for the same reason that ICE is moving people out of the state of Colorado, out of many states so quickly, and really the habeas petition is one of the few if only options available for the legal representations in the federal court system to tell ICE, "Hold on a second.

[00:08:53]Due process is not as as the judge said, a game of keepaway. You've got to adhere to that." So, this is really this effort and you're seeing it across the country including here here in Colorado.

[00:09:04]>> You also mentioned like these holding facilities are a factor like which cities have big holding facilities when you're moving things quickly?

[00:09:11]>> Yeah, and that absolutely was a factor in Minnesota. Minnesota does not have a very large facility. They use Fort Snelling up in the Minneapolis area and it doesn't hold a lot of people, but what you noticed in the We went through a lot of judicial orders for this project and what we noticed is that increasingly a number of judges in Minnesota were saying, "Well, if you're going to remove a bunch of people, you have to have the infrastructure in place to do that." And that's why the judge said at the end that you can't It's not a game of keep away. If you don't have the infrastructure, you don't have a place to put them, you can't just put them on a plane to El Paso, Texas and think that everything's going to be okay.

[00:09:45]>> Right, feels like the planes at times are acting as holding spaces for them.

[00:09:49]>> Yeah.

[00:09:49]>> Uh all right, Chris, thanks.

[00:09:51]>> And you can watch the full hour-long documentary ICE Air: Inside America's Secret Deportation Network streaming now on 9 News Plus. Just scan that QR code on your TV, watch for free. We'll be right back.