On November 18, 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) SoCal, joined by Mayer Brown LLP, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles, California, to obtain information on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Air Operations (IAO) program following an unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted in August 2024.

President-elect Trump plans to declare a national emergency so he can use the U.S. military, including the National Guard and other U.S. troops, to support his mass deportation plans. Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s national prison project, said, “For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and FOIA litigation has been a central part of our roadmap. A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation.”

In its suit, ACLU SoCal said that President-elect Trump’s “stated plan to arrest noncitizens on a vast scale and operate around-the-clock deportation flights using [IAO] has rendered the public’s interest in the matter all the greater.” Specifically, the lawsuit “seeks disclosure of records related to [IAO] from the period of January 1, 2023 through the present, including, but not limited to, contracts for operating removal flights and ground transportation to removal flights, and internal policies and procedures for staging, staffing, and handling flights, including those with unaccompanied children.”

IAO is ICE’s primary air transportation division. IAO “facilitates the transfer and removal of noncitizens via commercial airlines and chartered flights in support of ICE field offices and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiatives.” ACLU SoCal noted that “ICE continues to withhold from the public key information about the millions of taxpayer dollars that it funnels to private third parties to operate [IAO] with little public oversight or transparency.” The suit notes that “[o]ver the past few decades, the institutional infrastructure behind these flights has shifted from a government-run operation by the U.S. Marshals Service on government planes, to a sprawling and opaque network of flights on privately-owned aircraft chartered by [IAO]. Despite the critical role these flights play in the removal system—in many instances, serving as the mechanism for deportation—[IAO] remains shrouded in secrecy.” ACLU SoCal said that the information sought “will shed critical light on ICE’s removal processes and help to inform the public of the risks that would result if [IAO’s] capacity is further built out.”

ACLU SoCal is a nonprofit affiliate of the national ACLU Foundation and has more than 120,000 members.