US probes air traffic staffing, flight volume at DC airport in crash investigation
The board is holding a hearing Thursday looking at issues at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before the Jan. 29 collision over the nearby Potomac River that was the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.
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The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
Welcome to the nation's ‘super deportation center,' inspired by Amazon and FedEx but ‘with human beings'
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice After he was arrested outside his Virginia apartment in March, Georgetown University professor Badar Khan Suri was briefly detained in the state before being put on a plane bound for an immigration detention center more than 1,000 miles away. Suri — who was targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for his Palestinian activism and his family ties to Gaza — arrived at the only ICE facility that doubles as an airport, without his attorneys having any idea where he was. Officers told Suri that he had entered the nation's 'super deportation center,' according to his attorneys. The college professor was shackled at the ankles and handcuffed then marched into a 70,000 square foot 'staging facility' in Alexandria, Louisiana, which has emerged as the nexus point for President Donald Trump's mass deportation machine. Suri is far from alone. Since Trump returned to the White House, more than 20,000 people en route to other detention centers have passed through the Louisiana facility — which ICE officials have long aspired to operate like corporate giants FedEx and Amazon. open image in gallery ICE has relied on its sprawling network of detention centers to move immigrants in custody where space is available, with a dual purpose airport and detention facility in Alexandria, Louisiana emerging as a hub for the Trump administration's deportation agenda ( Courtesy ICE Office of Public Affairs ) ICE's acting director Todd Lyons has bluntly compared the movement of people to packages. 'We need to get better at treating this like a business, where this mass deportation operation is something like you would see and say, like, Amazon trying to get your Prime delivery within 24 hours,' Lyons told a law enforcement conference in Phoenix earlier this year. 'So, trying to figure out how to do that with human beings,' he said. The idea of 'running the government like a business' has taken root inside ICE over the last decade with lucrative public-private partnerships between the federal government and for-profit contractors, which operate roughly 90 percent of all ICE detention centers. Since before the Trump administration, the ICE field office in New Orleans — which is responsible for removal operations in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — was modeling operations after shipping giant FedEx and its 'spoke-hub' model. Detainees are temporarily held in detention 'hubs' before they're sent to a network of detention center 'spokes' where they wait to be deported. In Suri's case, he arrived at the Alexandria 'hub' before he was moved to a regional 'spoke' in Texas. The idea for a staging facility in Louisiana 'started on a cocktail napkin' at Ruth's Chris steakhouse, according to Philip Miller, a former ICE official in New Orleans who went on to work for an IT firm that contracts with federal law enforcement. Miller sought 'a more effective and efficient way of moving the growing number of foreign detainees,' according to 2015 newsletter from GEO Group, the private prison contractor that operates the Alexandria facility. Trump's border czar Tom Homan tapped former GEO Group executive David Venturella to support the administration's deportation agenda, and he is now serving in a top role at ICE managing contracts for immigrant detention centers, according to The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Daniel Bible, who worked at ICE for 15 years, including a year as the executive associate director of removal operations, left the agency in November 2024 to join GEO Group as its executive vice president. GEO Group referred The Independent to ICE for comment. Lyons, who has helmed ICE since March, addressed his now-viral remarks about treating immigrants like packages in an interview the following month. 'The key part that got left out of that statement was, I said, they deal with boxes, we deal with human beings, which is totally different,' he told Boston 25 News. ICE 'should be run like a corporation', he told the outlet. 'We need to be better about removing those individuals who have been lawfully ordered out of the country in a safe, efficient manner,' Lyons continued. 'We can't trade innovation and efficiency for how we treat the people in our custody.' The Independent has requested comment from ICE on its removal operations at the Alexandria facility. open image in gallery Acting ICE director Todd Lyons says the agency should be 'run like a corporation' after comparing the federal government's deportation operations to Amazon and FedEx ( AFP via Getty Images ) Fourteen of the 20 largest ICE detention centers in the U.S. are in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, a network that immigrant advocates have labelled 'deportation alley.' The jails — most of which are operated by private prison companies — hold thousands of people each year. More than 7,000 people are currently jailed in Louisiana's immigration detention centers while Texas facilities are holding more than 12,000. More than 56,000 people are in ICE detention across the country. But Louisiana is home to the nation's only ICE detention center with a tarmac. The facility in Alexandria has become the nation's busiest deportation airport with 1,200 flights to other U.S. detention centers and more than 200 planes leaving the country since Trump took office. ICE has operated at least 209 deportation flights in June, the highest level since 2020. During the first six months of Trump's second presidency, ICE removed nearly 150,000 people from the U.S. Alexandria, a city of roughly 44,000 people, is the ninth largest in the state but surrounded by forest and swampland, with summer temperatures regularly climbing into triple digits with humidity levels exceeding 70 percent. Detainees at the facility in Alexandria cannot be held for more than 72 hours, and the facility does not permit access to visitors or even legal counsel, according to attorneys. Suri was held there for three days before being transferred to a Texas detention center where he was housed in the 'TV room,' according to his attorneys. He was given only a thin plastic mattress. Suri was released after spending eight weeks in detention amid an ongoing legal battle. open image in gallery Georgetown University scholar Badar Khani Suri is among hundreds of people who have been detained at the facility in Alexandria, which functions as a central hub for the Trump administration's deportation agenda by temporarily detaining deportees before sending them to other detention centers ( AP ) Louisiana locks up more people per capita than any other U.S. state, in a country with one of the highest incarceration rates on the planet. Most incarcerated people in Louisiana are in local jails, and the state pays sheriffs a daily rate per inmate, creating what civil rights groups fear is a cruel pay-to-play system that incentivizes locking people up. In 2017, the state's Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards advanced legislation to reduce the state's prison population, which ultimately fell by more than 8,000 over the next five years. But at the same time, the first Trump administration was ramping up immigration arrests and expanding capacity to hold immigrants in detention. Following Trump's 2016 victory, ICE expanded the nation's immigration detention system by more than 50 percent, with contracts for private companies to operate at least 40 new detention facilities. Companies including GEO Group, CoreCivic and LaSalle Corrections own or operate facilities that jail the majority of immigrants. All but one of Louisiana's nine facilities are run by private prison firms. The 400-bed detention center in Alexandria is run by GEO Group, whose stock is valued at roughly $4 billion. Inside, dorm-style units hold up to 80 people each, and each includes an expansive 'processing area' with rows of benches and walls lined with hundreds of shackles. People who are processed at the facility from arriving flights are placed in five-point restraints and forced to sit on the benches, according to immigration attorneys. Before it opened in 2014, ICE transported people by bus from different jails to a local commercial airport or Alexandria International Airport, a converted military base that has emerged as what human rights groups called a 'national nerve center' for ICE Air, the group of charter airlines contracted with the agency to operate deportation flights. 'Alexandria allows the concentrated detention and staging of hundreds of people at a time, optimizing efficiency of ICE's deportation machine,' according to a 2024 report from a coalition of human rights groups. In August 2017, the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties found that the Alexandria facility 'is not properly screening for and identifying detainees at risk for suicide' and 'does not provide mental health treatment and programming,' the report found. That civil rights office was among bureaus within Homeland Security that have been abruptly shuttered under Trump's second administration. open image in gallery Geo Group is among several for-profit prison companies that operate a majority of ICE detention centers. All but one of Louisiana's nine facilities are run by contractors ( AFP via Getty Images ) Alexandria is a two-hour drive from Baton Rouge and more than three hours away from New Orleans, where most of the state's immigration attorneys live and practice. That distance has made access to legal counsel for the nearly 8,000 people in Louisiana's detention facilities enormously difficult. There is little if any access to the internet or law libraries and few chances to privately speak with family or attorneys. To visit detainees at another facility, the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, roughly 200 miles from New Orleans, Tulane University law professor Mary Yanik and students with the Immigrants' Rights Law Clinic said they leave by 5:30 a.m. and return as late as 10 p.m., in order to speak with as many people as possible. 'That is a grueling schedule, if you think about the number of hours for a single visit with a client for a single court hearing,' she told The Independent earlier this year. 'They feel forgotten. They feel like they're screaming into a void.' The most common question among them is 'why am I here?' 'They're so disoriented by what was happening to them, and so confused. At least one person thought they were in Texas,' she said. ''What is going on? Can't I just go home?''
The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
Former New York prison guard sentenced to 15 years for beating death of inmate
A former corrections officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison Monday for his role in the death of a Black inmate whose beating by a group of guards at an upstate New York prison was captured on bodycam videos. Christopher Walrath was one of six guards charged with murder in the death of Robert Brooks, who was pummeled at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. Walrath pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in May under the first plea deal among the guards charged with murder. 'In that video, I see you and your fellow officers treating him as if his life holds no value at all, as if you're entitled to brutalize him for sport,' Robert Brooks Jr., the victim's son, told the court. The son said in his victim impact statement that, 'I am not OK and I never will be.' Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault since 2017 and was transferred to Marcy from a nearby lockup on the night he was beaten. The videos show Brooks being struck in the chest with a shoe, lifted by his neck and then dropped. Under questioning in May from Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, Walrath admitted that he and other guards assaulted Brooks, that he put Brooks in a chokehold, and that he struck the inmate's body and groin. In addition to the six guards charged in February with murder, three more prison workers were indicted for manslaughter and another for evidence tampering. Prosecutors have said three other prison workers have reached agreements. A guard pleaded guilty in May to attempted tampering with physical evidence and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge. Trials were scheduled to begin in October for guards who have rejected plea deals. Fitzpatrick also is prosecuting guards in the fatal beating of Messiah Nantwi on March 1 at another Marcy lockup, the Mid-State Correctional Facility. Ten guards were indicted in April, including two who are charged with murder.
The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
Fox host fawns over ‘good jeans' Sydney Sweeney on gun range: ‘As a single guy ... you love to see it'
Sweeney has courted controversy with her recent 'good jeans' ad for American Eagle, which some have argued carries racist messaging, prompting outrage from the right in response. President Donald Trump jumped into the fray, praising the ad after it was reported that Sweeney is a registered Republican in Florida. 'You love to see it,' said Jones. 'For me, as a single guy, anytime I see a young woman that can shoot, her value goes up. That means I can take her home to Texas … That means when I'm away from the family, she's gonna protect the family. And I think this is beautiful. 'They tried to destroy this woman, and her value is going up. She is just not beautiful, but she can shoot, too? We're done here. It's just beautiful.' The footage of Sweeney at the gun range was shared by Taran Tactical Innovations, an online firearms retailer, on Saturday. Left-leaning critics of the American Eagle ad campaign have accused the company of spreading 'racist' and 'Nazi propaganda.' Some have argued that it pushes eugenic ideals with its wordplay on 'jeans' and 'genes.' Critics have argued that the two phrases harken back to the debunked racist theory pushed by the Nazis that the human race can be improved via selective breeding. 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,' Sweeney says in one of the ads. 'My jeans are blue,' she adds, before a narrator says, 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.' Fox News took notes from Trump's playbook and seemingly used the controversy surrounding the ad to avoid discussing the scandal enveloping the administration in connection with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America found that Fox News spent more than 85 minutes during at least 20 segments discussing the ad through Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, Fox discussed the Epstein files for about three minutes even as Trump claimed that Epstein 'stole' one of his accusers, the late Virginia Giuffre, from Mar-a-Lago. Media Matters found that Fox News mentioned Sweeney 62 times, while just mentioning Epstein 14 times. Trump heaped praise on the jeans ad after Sweeney's political leanings were reported. The president addressed reporters on the runway in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday night. 'She's a registered Republican?' Trump asked. 'Now I love her ad.' Previously, on Sunday, it emerged that since June of last year, Sweeney has been registered with the Republican Party of Florida, according to public voting records viewed by The Guardian. 'Is that right? Is Sydney Sweeney… You'd be surprised how many people are Republicans. That's one I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that,' said Trump. 'If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic,' he added. ''Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans,' American Eagle said in a response to the criticism. 'Her jeans. Her story.' 'We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way,' the statement added. 'Great jeans look good on everyone.' Trump took to Truth Social on Monday morning to say that 'Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the 'HOTTEST' ad out there.' 'It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are 'flying off the shelves,'' he claimed. The president went on to criticise 'WOKE' advertising, before taking aim at Taylor Swift, who endorsed his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, ahead of the 2024 election. 'Or just look at Woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying on TRUTH that I can't stand her (HATE!),' he said. 'She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT.' Trump went on to say that 'WOKE is for losers' and that the 'Republican Party is what you want to be.'
