{"id":516845,"date":"2022-02-17T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=386546"},"modified":"2022-02-17T11:00:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T11:00:37","slug":"amazon-co-owns-deportation-airline-implicated-in-alleged-torture-of-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/02\/17\/amazon-co-owns-deportation-airline-implicated-in-alleged-torture-of-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Co-Owns Deportation Airline Implicated in Alleged Torture of Immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Amazon\u2019s dominance<\/u> of global e-commerce has grown, so has its vast fleet of vehicles shuttling packages from warehouse to doorstep around the world. To further expand its ballooning logistics empire, the company quietly became a partial owner of Air Transport Services Group Inc., a power player in the air cargo industry that has helped the United States forcibly deport thousands of migrants and, its passengers allege, at times subjected them to horrific abuse en route.<\/p>\n

On March 9, 2021, following five years of using the service for chartered cargo flights, Amazon purchased 19.5\u00a0percent of ATSG for $131 million and currently reserves options that would let it expand that stake to 40 percent. Among ATSG\u2019s various aviation subsidiaries is Omni Air International, a passenger charter firm that moves humans on behalf of the federal government. Its two most prominent federal customers are the Department of Defense, which uses the firm for troop transports, and the Department of Homeland Security, which has paid the company reportedly exorbitant fees over the years in order to execute so-called special high-risk charter\u00a0flights for its \u201cICE Air\u201d deportation machine.\u00a0Immigration and Customs Enforcement deals with Omni through an intermediary, Classic Air Charter Inc., a flight logistics firm whose parent company previously helped transport CIA prisoners<\/a> to black sites to be tortured.<\/p>\n

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Homeland Security defines these \u201chigh-risk\u201d flights as any \u201cscheduled to repatriate individuals who cannot be removed via commercial airlines to locations worldwide, or because of other security concerns or risk factors.\u201d According to ICE Air contract documents reviewed by The Intercept, the definition of \u201chigh risk\u201d is so broad as to include virtually anyone, \u201cincluding, but not limited to, the following: uncommon or long-distance destination, failure to comply with removal proceeding, high profile removal, etc.\u201d The notion that these deportees in some way pose a grave danger has created a pretext, agency critics allege, to beat, demean, and terrify them in the name of homeland security.<\/p>\n

An Amazon spokesperson acknowledged The Intercept’s request for comment on these allegations but did not provide any response. ATSG, Omni, and ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n

ICE Air\u2019s particular reputation for brutality is well earned and thoroughly catalogued. In 2019, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights published a string of reports<\/a> on the flights, documenting a \u201clong series of indignities and illegalities\u201d stretching back decades. The deportation flight abuse crisis is attributed directly to the opacity of firms like Omni: \u201cOver the past decade, the institutional infrastructure behind these flights has shifted from a government operation run by the US Marshals Service on government planes, to a sprawling, semi-secret network of flights on privately-owned aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the more infamous examples is a notoriously botched 2017 removal flight to Somalia<\/a>, which the center believes was operated by Omni, on which deportees alleged \u201cphysical beatings, the use of straitjackets, verbal abuse and threats, and the denial of access to restrooms, which forced passengers to soil themselves in their seats.\u201d Though the Somalia flight was perhaps the highest-profile instance of ICE Air abuse, the Center for Human Rights concluded that \u201cgiven the lack of effective oversight of ICE Air, it is likely that many other abuses may go unreported. \u2026 Among the former deportees we interviewed, accounts of more routine ill-treatment were common, including the use of racist epithets and insults, and rough physical treatment upon boarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even without specific allegations of abuse, the flights come with an inherent brutality for deportees, who remain bound and shackled for the entirety of an international flight, at times upward of 30 hours or more with stopovers. Nearly 100 formal allegations of abuse and mistreatment aboard ICE Air flights<\/a> were filed to the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Office\u00a0for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties between 2007 and 2018, including a 2012 incident in which an ICE detainee \u201cmiscarried her triplets\u201d aboard a removal flight to El Salvador.<\/p>\n

The determination that the human cargo in question presents a \u201csecurity concern\u201d such that they warrant a \u201chigh-risk\u201d deportation flight can result in even harsher treatment than \u201cregular\u201d removal flights, according to deportation watchers. Despite ICE Air’s efforts to operate in near-total secrecy, Sarah Towle<\/a>, an author, immigrant advocate, and researcher based in London, has tirelessly tracked these flights and given a voice to their passengers, conducting dozens of interviews with deportees since 2020 to gain a rare glimpse into their treatment. While those deported by ICE typically<\/p>\n\n

Among other alleged horrors, Towle says one particular in-flight brutality motivates her to continue documenting deportee abuse and push Amazon to divest from ATSG and its ICE-affiliated subsidiary:\u00a0the WRAP. Sold to police departments across the United States and part of ICE\u2019s \u201cauthorized restraint devices<\/a>,\u201d the WRAP incapacitates individuals by binding their legs together and their arms behind their back in a semi-seated position using a mummy-like set of harnesses, locks, and chains. The device\u2019s Diablo, California-based manufacturer, Safe Restraints Inc., says it was \u201cinvented by law enforcement and medical professionals to improve the method of safely restraining an individual\u201d and provides a means of immobilizing detainees with \u201crespect\u201d and \u201chumane care,\u201d according to training materials<\/a>. This training document adds that there is no time limit that a person can be kept in\u00a0a WRAP, nor does it rule out its use on pregnant detainees.<\/p>\n

An investigation by Capital & Main<\/a>\u00a0published February 3 found that no \u201ctesting requirements, safety guidelines or certifications exist in the United States for full body restraint systems like the WRAP\u201d and “identified 10 lawsuits brought by families of people who died in police custody during incidents involving the WRAP since 2000,\u201d though these deaths were not definitively attributed to the device\u2019s use. Safe Restraints\u2019s CEO told Capital & Main\u00a0that the company \u201coperate[s] under the highest standards that we believe are necessary to help people stay alive\u201d and that \u201cwe have an incredibly high safety record,\u201d but cited no evidence.
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