Reconciliation Bill :: Immigration and ICE Agents Could Now Receive A $40,000 Bonus

Immigration Prisons as Planned in Kansas Are For Business, Not Safety

Kansas City Star: Opinion by Joshua Rush May 21, 2025

In Kansas, the average worker might hope for a $2,500 bonus at year’s end, if the company did well and the manager remembered. But under a new federal plan, a federal Immigration and an ICE agent could now receive a $40,000 bonus just for staying on the job.

That’s nearly 20 times the average year-end bonus of $2,503 received by American workers in 2024.

And it doesn’t stop there.

The same legislation proposes $45 billion to expand ICE’s detention and deportation budget by 2029, a 365% increase over current levels. The goal is to accelerate deportations and build more detention facilities.

Let’s break that down.

✔ ICE salary (for an experienced agent): $88,000 to $114,000

✔ Availability pay: Raises total to about $142,000

✔ New bonus: Add $40,000

✔ Private prison contracts to companies such as GEO Group and CoreCivic, which wants to reopen a detention facility in Leavenworth for ICE: more than $1 billion

And for individuals in the system?

✔ Cost to detain one person daily: Around $150

✔ Cost to monitor someone with electronic supervision daily: $4.07

That means the government is choosing to spend nearly 40 times more to imprison someone than to monitor them.

ICE Air :: Deportation Air Carriers

ICE Air Operations

ICE Air Operations (IAO) is ICE’s primary air transportation division.

IAO stages a total of 12 aircraft at its operational locations in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.

Hidden in Plain Sight:

ICE Air and the Machinery of Mass Deportation

ICE Air based in Mesa, Arizona has additional locations in San Antonio and Brownsville in Texas, Alexandria in Louisiana, and Miami in Florida. They are staging areas for deportations.

It supports 24 ICE field offices with the transfer and removal of noncitizens via chartered and commercial flights.

There are many U.S.-flagged airlines taking the ICE charter contracts, including the reinvented Eastern Airlines which converted a 767 used for the New England Patriots to handle deportations to Brazil and Venezuela.

Private air charter companies make billions deporting immigrants with little oversight. A New Mexico firm, CSI Aviation, that donated hundred of thousands of dollars to Trump and GOP super PACs won a $3.6 billion contract.

Air charter companies

Air Transport Services Group

ATSG provides cargo aircraft for Amazon, UPS, and DHL. It is also the largest provider of passenger charter flights to the US Department of Defense (DOD) via its Omni Air International subsidiary

Avelo Airlines

an ultra-low cost airline headquartered in Houston, Texas. Avelo is the first commercial airline began deportation flights for (ICE) starting May 12 from Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona.

List of Airports

Classic Air Charter

ICE Air has relied primarily on one broker, Classic Air Charter, for contracting. Public records show Homeland Security awarded that company a contract worth more than $800 million during a period from 2017 to 2023.

CSI Aviation

New principal broker

With CAC's contract expiring last year, ICE issued an emergency contract valued at $300 million to CSI Aviation, which ran from July 2023 to March of this year, when it was subsequently extended into a full 5-year contract. The total contract ceiling is a whopping $3.6 billion, and unsurprisingly, given this vast amount, legal wrangling is underway between CSI, CAC, and another potential bidder, Chapman Freeborn Airchartering, regarding the awarding of the contract.

Eastern Airlines

At least 40 ICE detainees transferred to border states in overnight flight

Sarah Betancourt February 12, 2025

It is the first large-scale proof that the new Trump administration is transferring scores of detainees out of New England as part of its ongoing effort to deport immigrants, a key campaign promise. A flight on the privately chartered Eastern Air Express, which contracts with the agency, left from Bedford, Massachusetts after 1 a.m. on Feb. 2. On it, according to multiple sources, were about 40 ICE detainees.

GEO Transit

Miami-based private charter company Global Crossing Airlines projected that its subcontract to provide flights for ICE was worth $65 million over five years

GlobalX

quickly filled the void as a new sub-contractor for ICE Air. Based in Miami, it is the fastest-growing charter airline in North America

ICE charter flights by GlobalX have been removed from many flight trackers, and given the call sign TYSON --previously associated w/ Secret Service and a B52 bomber squadron.

GlobalX, Airline for Trump’s Deportations, Hacked

Joseph Cox, Jason Koebler May 5, 2025

Omni

accused by the University of Washington's Center for Human Rights (among others) of committing numerous abuses within its ICE Air operations, including physical abuse, torture, and denial of due process.

World Atlantic Airlines

has served in an 'overflow' capacity when iAero could not take on a specific flight request and has provided an increased number of flights since iAreo's demise. It has a fleet of five MD-83s, with an average age of 33 years, originally acquired from American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

Signature Aviation

has grown to become the world's largest network of Fixed Base Operations (FBOs). Signature is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, with over 200 locations.

Bill Gates & the Gates Foundation own 30% of Signature Aviation. It's managed by Cascade Investment LLC worked with Black Rock & Blackstone to purchase Signature in 2021.

ICE Air Operations: Which Aircraft Are Used & How Many Flights Are Operated?

Simple Flying: By Paul Hartley Nov 23, 2024

Private Airlines Are Making Billions on Deportations

Jacobin:By Katya Schwenk 03.26.2025

Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time”

ProPublica: by McKenzie Funk April 1, 2025

April 17 :: Communities Not Cages :: Day of Action

 April 17 #CommunitiesNotCages

The "Communities Not Cages" National Day of Action, organized by Detention Watch Network is co-hosted by the American Friends Service Committee and Immigrant Justice Network. The demonstration calls for an end to immigration detention and deportation policies under the Trump administration's hardline agenda.

The coordinated day of action includes rallies, vigils, banner drops, and large-scale light projections in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, and New York City. Actions kicked off with an interfaith vigil in Dublin, California on April 16 and will continue through April 19 in Gadsden, Alabama.

The "Communities Not Cages" campaign aims to shut down existing detention centers and halt further expansion. Organizers emphasize community-based alternatives to detention and demand that public funds be redirected toward immigrant support services rather than incarceration. [ Newsweek ]

List of events at bit.ly/CNCDOA417

Send letters to members of #Congress

Oppose #ICE’s attacks on immigrants

ACTION TOOLKIT: 

COMMUNITIES NOT CAGES NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION