As ICE ramps up arrests, Plymouth sheriff's office shuttles men from jail to Hanscom airport

On a recent Saturday morning, sheriff's deputies from Plymouth County escorted 76 men from the jail onto a bus and several vans. All were being held for the federal government, on alleged immigration violations.

Their destination: Hanscom Field, an airport in Bedford used mainly for corporate jets, charters and other private planes. The Plymouth County Sheriff's Office has been making a lot of these van trips, according to interviews and records obtained by WBUR — delivering hundreds of people to federal agents at Hanscom, where they’re flown to states with larger detention centers, often far from Massachusetts.

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests a growing number of people in this state, Hanscom has emerged as a frequent transfer point. And the Plymouth County sheriff has a hand in helping ICE as it moves detainees around the country.

Sheriff Joseph McDonald's office has taken 545 ICE detainees to the Hanscom airport since President Trump took office, from Jan. 20 through May, according to data obtained in a public records request.

"When they kick up their activities," McDonald said, "we're going to see larger numbers of people passing through our facility on their way to other places."

Plymouth’s jail has had contracts with ICE dating back to 2009. It’s now the only Massachusetts facility with a contract to hold ICE detainees, with 526 beds that are in high demand from immigration officials.

The surge in ICE transfer activity at Hanscom comes as immigration officials have stepped up arrests in Massachusetts and other states. Often, the government is flying people to large ICE detention centers in southern states, including Louisiana and Texas, to await deportation hearings.

The Trump administration says it’s fulfilling a campaign pledge to make the country safer by removing dangerous criminals from the streets. But critics complain the government is also rounding up immigrants who were working and living here peacefully, solely for lacking legal status.

In May alone, federal immigration authorities say they arrested nearly 1,500 people in Massachusetts, 790 of whom, ICE officials allege, have committed crimes beyond being in the country without legal status.

"When they kick up their activities ... we're going to see larger numbers of people passing through our facility on their way to other places."

Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald

At the Plymouth County jail, this surge makes for brisk business. The sheriff said with so many new detainees arriving in recent months, the typical stay at the facility is brief — 11 days on average.

McDonald said his office has a history of working with other law enforcement and characterized the deal with ICE as part of a longstanding partnership. ICE pays the jail $215 per bed per day, according to the federal contract. McDonald said his office does not financially benefit from the arrangement; federal payments go to the state.

He also said his deputies are not involved in ICE arrests or arranging the flights.

"We don't have any role as far as making those decisions," McDonald said. He said he does not know where detainees are ultimately taken after being dropped off at Hanscom.

"Anything I would tell you would be speculation," he said.

Law enforcement in Massachusetts is generally barred from arresting people based solely on immigration status, under a 2017 ruling by the state’s high court. Local law enforcement can assist ICE in cases when there is a criminal warrant, and sheriff's offices can enter contracts, as Plymouth does, to hold and transport detainees already in ICE custody.

An ICE spokesman declined to discuss the Hanscom flights on the record and the agency did not respond to a list of written questions.

The Massachusetts Port Authority, the agency that oversees the airport, does not have data on ICE flights, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Mehigan. She said the government doesn’t notify the airport about the flights; it mainly uses charter planes owned by a variety of private companies.

One person who tracks ICE flights closely is Tom Cartwright, a former financial executive turned immigration advocate, who’s become a leading authority on the air transfers. He has assembled a database of more than 38,000 flights, both domestic and international, using a number of public sources to identify planes and track their movements.

According to his data, 16 ICE charters flew through Hanscom airport last month – four times the number in May last year. And since President Trump took office, the agency has flown more than 40 flights through Hanscom, he said. Plymouth took ICE detainees to the airport on nearly half of those same dates, according to data WBUR from the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office said its records do not include any additional transports handled directly by ICE. Nor would it have data on any ICE personnel being moved on the flights or detainees from other holding centers in New England.

Cartwright said the rise in flights out of Hanscom is part of a national trend, as the federal government steps up arrests in places like Massachusetts, far from the southern border and ICE’s largest detention centers.

“That just requires more flight legs to move people," said Cartwright, who's been tracking ICE trips since January 2020. He said the flights he’s tracked through Hanscom typically begin in southern and southwestern states, touch down in Hanscom and other locations farther north, and then return to their point of origin.

On May 31, the same day that Plymouth County transported 76 people to Hanscom, Cartwright’s data show two domestic ICE flights landed and took off from the airport.

One of the planes, a Boeing B737, went on to Buffalo, New York, and then to San Antonio, Texas, according to data from flight tracking site ADS-B Exchange. Another, an Airbus A320, went on to Alexandria, Louisiana. Both destinations are in a region of the country with the largest ICE detention facilities.

Cartwright said it is difficult to capture every ICE fight in his data. For instance, he said he can't track smaller moves on commercial airlines, and it's complicated to track military transports. He said ICE also has made it more complicated to track the flights over time by blocking data from some websites.

He said there’s no way to know exactly how many people are on each of the planes: "It's a real mystery," Cartwright said. "You don't know who gets on and who gets off."

The planes Cartwright tracked through Hanscom can typically hold well over 100 passengers, but he said it’s impossible to know precisely how many people are on board at a given time.

Federal officials have been outspoken about their efforts to increase enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration.

“ ICE and our federal partners targeted the most dangerous alien offenders in some of the most crime infested neighborhoods of Massachusetts,” Patricia Hyde, the acting field director for ICE's Boston office, said at a recent news conference in Boston.

Hyde pledged that the arrests will continue: “ICE is not going away,” she said.

Critics, including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, complain the federal government has swept up too many people without serious criminal records, and with little disclosure of the grounds for their arrest.

"They claim that they're going after the worst criminals amongst the immigrants, and it doesn't appear that that's the truth," said Christopher Eliot, who lives near the Hanscom airport and is a longtime member of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, a liaison group between the airport and surrounding towns.

Eliot said he was concerned to learn the Plymouth Sheriff’s office has brought so many detainees to the airport for flights this year.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s a lot of people.”

Eliot said the advisory commission mainly fields complaints about noise and pollution. Still, he said he plans to ask Massport officials about the ICE flights at the commission’s next meeting on June 17.

But he doubts the state can do anything about ICE's use of Hanscom.

“They’re allowed to use the airport,” he said. “The airport doesn't control those flights.”