Healey calls on airlines to stop providing charter flights to ICE at Hanscom Field

Gov. Maura Healey called on two airlines to stop chartering flights used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people out of Massachusetts, saying the federal agency's tactics are “disturbing and anti-American.”

Healey made the demand in a letter sent Thursday to executives at Florida-based GlobalX Airlines and Missouri-based Eastern Air Express. It's the latest salvo in the first-term governor's attempt to end federal deportation flights connected to Hanscom Field in Bedford.

Healey said the two airlines’ decisions to provide aircraft and personnel to ICE at Hanscom Field allow federal agents to “quickly remove residents and sever them from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel without due process of law.”

“Flying these residents out of state — often within hours of arrest — is intentionally cruel and purposely obstructs the due process and legal representation they are entitled to. By contracting with ICE to execute these flights, you are profiting off these anti-American tactics and facilitating the obstruction of due process,” Healey said in her letter to the airline executives.

A spokesperson for the governor did not immediately clarify how the office learned that GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express were flying out of Hanscom on behalf of ICE.

Representatives of GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for ICE also did not immediately return a WBUR inquiry.

Healey, who is facing reelection this year and a trio of Republicans looking to take her job, has ramped up her criticism of federal immigration tactics since President Trump increased enforcement raids in Massachusetts.

In a separate letter sent last month to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting director of ICE Todd Lyons, Healey asked the federal government to “immediately stop” using Hanscom Field to fly detainees out of state.

But a spokesperson for ICE told WBUR last month that “ICE air flights out of Hanscom are saving American lives and they must continue.”

Officials at ICE briefly stopped using Hanscom Field to transport people facing immigration violations last summer. But flights resumed in September amid a surge of immigration enforcement actions in Massachusetts.

In her Thursday letter to the airline executives, Healey alleged that a “significant majority” of people detained by ICE over the past year have no criminal convictions or charges.

She described the detainees as “hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community who have been indiscriminately targeted for deportation proceedings.”

“Many of them are in the midst of a lawful process seeking citizenship through Massachusetts courts. Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children. And as we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE's tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly,” Healey said, referring to Wednesday's fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an ICE agent.

Her letter came a day after Avelo Airlines confirmed it would stop providing deportation flights to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Massachusetts Port Authority is the quasi-public agency that runs Hanscom Field, Logan Airport and Worcester Regional Airport.

A MassPort spokesperson previously told WBUR that the agency cannot discriminate against who can or cannot use Hanscom Field.

“Public use airports like Hanscom are required to accommodate all flights to the airport, including those by or on behalf of the federal government,” the spokesperson said in a statement.