Executive Summary
Since taking office on January 20, 2025, the Trump administration has pursued an unprecedented mass deportation agenda. U.S. officials have adopted a range of new tactics to achieve this objective, including expanding the use of expedited removal, sending people from the United States to offshore detention facilities in the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, terminating protected legal statuses, disappearing people without due process – including to a high security prison in El Salvador, and forcibly transferring individuals to other countries of which they are not citizens. These actions, many of which have been determined to be unlawful by federal courts, have been carried out with little to no transparency, while thousands of peoples’ lives are uprooted from communities across the country, families separated, and their rights are systematically violated.
ICE Flight Monitor responds to this lawlessness and lack of information by using publicly available aviation data to monitor and document flights conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including deportation flights and domestic transfers between U.S. detention centers and deportation staging facilities. The methodology is grounded in Tom Cartwright’s nearly six years of independent work that tracked tens of thousands of ICE flights. To ensure the accuracy and integrity of the findings, ICE Flight Monitor cross-references flight data with public records, media reports, and observations from trusted partner organizations. The project also tracks other relevant air operations—such as military planes involved in immigration enforcement and Mexican and Panamanian government deportation flights. ICE routinely carries out a small number of additional removals on commercial flights, which ICE Flight Monitor is unable to track.
ICE Flight Monitor reports the following top findings for September 2025:
- Record Number of Total U.S. Immigration Enforcement Flights Under the Trump Administration Amid Increased Number of ICE Air Planes. U.S. immigration enforcement flights continue to increase significantly under the second Trump administration. From January 20 to September 30, 2025, the administration conducted at least 8,877 total U.S. immigration enforcement flights. These include removal flights, removal-related flights, and domestic transfer (“shuffle”) flights. The majority of these flights are carried out by ICE Air charter planes, but a small number are carried out on Air Force cargo planes, Coast Guard aircraft, or airline carriers operated by other countries. The 8,877 total is the largest number of immigration enforcement flights for the period of January 20 – September 30 since tracking began in 2020, and constitutes a 62 percent increase over the same time period in 2024 (see Figure 1).
In September 2025 alone, ICE Flight Monitor recorded at least 1,464 U.S. immigration enforcement flights—the highest monthly total to date, averaging 49 flights per day. As Trump escalates his deportation campaign, the number of these related enforcement flights continues to surge, raising significant due process concerns regarding the underlying legality of these mass enforcement actions. During the first three months of his administration (January 20 to April 20), there was a monthly average of 723 flights. This contrasts sharply with the recent average of 1,371 flights per month between July and September 2025. On U.S. immigration enforcement flights, individuals are nearly always restrained by handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons, including during any layovers and fuel stops. The harsh conditions during enforcement flights raise serious human rights concerns.
- As ICE Air Continues to Expand Its Operations, Domestic Transfer Flights Hit Record in September, Alongside Heightened Interior Enforcement and Detention Rates. A significant portion of U.S. immigration enforcement flights include domestic transfer (or “shuffle”) flights, which move individuals between detention centers and deportation staging facilities across the United States. The Trump administration has sharply increased domestic transfer flights as part of ramped-up interior enforcement—a shift from the Biden administration’s focus on removing individuals who recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. From January 20 to September 30, 2025, the administration has carried out 5,322 shuffle flights—a 53 percent increase from the same period in 2024—including a record 969 flights in September. Notably, there was a monthly average of 851 domestic “shuffle” flights between July and September 2025, compared to a monthly average of 437 flights during the first three months of the Trump administration (January 20 to April 20)—an increase of 95 percent. The rise in flights in September is enabled by ICE Air expanding its operations by adding a new subcontracted charter carrier and beginning to use new planes through existing carriers– such as Avelo Airlines and Eastern– starting in mid-September.
- September Marks Monthly Record Number of Removal Destination Countries. In September, removal flights remained high, with at least 223 flights to 48 countries—the highest number of destination countries recorded in a single month (See Figure 2). Flights to Mexico dropped sharply to just nine in September, down from a record high of 72 in August, an outlier month when flights to Mexico accounted for 30 percent of the 240 total removal flights for the month. Removal flights to countries other than Mexico reached a record 214 in September—up from 168 in August—reflecting a 27 percent surge in flights. This had to do with an increase in multi-country routes, where a single flight carries out removals to various countries. Within Latin America, this included 55 flights to Guatemala, 55 flights to Honduras (a record high), and 10 to Nicaragua (another record high). In addition, there were an unprecedented high number of flights to Sub-Saharan Africa (18 flights) and East, Central, and South Asian countries (11 flights). In contrast, military removal flights dropped significantly from 17 in August to just three in September, indicating greater reliance on ICE Air aircraft for removals.
- First Removal Flight to Iran Via Transfer in Qatar Marks Expansion of Effort to Carry Out “Layover Transfer” Removal Flights to Countries with Strained Diplomatic Ties. On September 30, ICE Flight Monitor tracked an ICE Air removal flight reportedly carrying 55 Iranians to Qatar, where they were transferred by authorities to the custody of Iranian authorities. They were then put on a chartered Qatar Air flight—also monitored by ICE Flight Monitor—and subsequently deported to Iran. The flight is to deport up to 400 Iranian nationals in the coming months. The agreement reflects a growing effort by the Trump administration to facilitate removal flights to countries where the United States lacks diplomatic relations and where serious human rights concerns persist. The group of individuals on this deportation flight was to include political dissidents, a Christian convert, and others who had sought and been either denied or prevented from seeking asylum in the United States due to the range of asylum restrictions implemented by the Trump administration.
ICE Flight Monitor also tracked two flights in June and August 2025 that involved the transfer of detained Russian nationals from the U.S. government to Egyptian government custody in Cairo, Egypt. Recent reports indicate that Russian nationals aboard those two flights were subsequently forcibly returned by Egyptian authorities to Russia, including individuals who had been detained in the United States for over a year after seeking asylum. In addition, from February to August, ICE Flight Monitor has also tracked 20 U.S. removal flights to Venezuela that included a transfer to a Venezuelan carrier in Honduras, which accounted for 40 percent of total removal flights to Venezuela in that period.
- Forced Third-Country Transfers Continue with First Flight Carrying non-Ghanaians to Ghana. On September 5, ICE Flight Monitor tracked the first third-country removal flight to Ghana–which took place on a C-17 military cargo plane. This flight occurred due to a bilateral agreement in which Ghana agreed to accept third-country nationals—primarily West Africans—removed from the United States. This is part of the Trump administration’s effort to pursue agreements with countries to facilitate forced third-country transfers—which send individuals to countries of which they are not citizens and often have no ties. In previous months, third-country removal flights were carried out to Rwanda, Eswatini, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, El Salvador, Panama, and Costa Rica. The legality of these transfers—particularly without notice or an opportunity to contest the transfer based on fear of persecution—is currently being challenged in U.S. federal courts.
- As of October 1st, No Migrants or Asylum Seekers Remain Detained at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Offshore Detention Facilities. Notably, as of October 1, 2025, no migrants and asylum seekers remain at the offshore detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (GTMO), where the Trump administration first began to transfer individuals from detention centers in U.S. territory in February 2025. Since then, there have been a total of 89 flights to GTMO, a number of the flights continued on to removal destinations while other flights transferred individuals to and from U.S. territory. In the past two months, there has been a decreasing number of migrants and asylum seekers detained at the base, which is reflected in the flight patterns. Only six flights took place in August and five flights in September, a significant decrease from the record high of 19 flights that occurred in July, which all carried individuals from U.S. territory-based detention centers to be detained at GTMO. A flight on October 1 returned the final remaining 18 individuals to the Alexandria, Louisiana ICE hub.
These findings make clear that the Trump administration’s current deportation campaign is unprecedented and dangerous—not only to the rights of those it targets, but also to our democracy. ICE Flight Monitor delivers accessible and reliable data to strengthen public accountability and uphold transparency. The following sections detail ICE Flight Monitor’s tracking from September 2025, including: 1) All U.S. immigration enforcement by air; 2) U.S. removal flights; 3) flights to and from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base; 4) domestic shuffle flights; and 5) Mexican and Panamanian governments’ deportation flights.
