Latest Weather Blog
ICE on the Bayou Part 1:
The Hidden Hub
A small Louisiana airport that most people never heard of is running the country's biggest deportation operation
Oct 2025 – Mar 2026
flights from Alexandriaper Human Rights First
on averagethrough Alexandria
locationsdomestic & international
A WBRZ investigation has found that Alexandria International Airport has become the top hub for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights in the country.
With the help of the group ICE Flight Monitor, WBRZ Investigative Unit reporter Stephen Stock closely tracked 3,956 ICE flights — both domestic and international — that came in and flew out of Alexandria International Airport between October 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.
Without these ICE flights, Alexandria International, which sits on a former World War II military base, only sees a handful of commercial flights each day.
WBRZ then cross-referenced that ICE Flight Monitor data by comparing it with data documenting all airplane flights, commercial, private and government-contracted, that flew out of and into Alexandria International. WBRZ purchased that comprehensive flight data from the website FlightAware.
We then verified many of those flights by witnessing them firsthand. During our six-month-long investigation, we watched dozens of ICE flights taking off and landing from Alexandria in person. We tracked those flights using the airplanes' tail N-numbers and using publicly available FAA ownership data.
The flight data shows since January 2025, Alexandria ranks first out of 85 different airports around the world for the number of ICE flights. Alexandria far outpaces other locations in the top ten as the destination and origin — the main hub — of all ICE deportation flights inside the U.S. and around the world.
(show top ten graphic)
"We've seen that 46 percent of deportation flights originated in Alexandria. And, you know, on average, 14 different flights are going through Alexandria every day."— Savi Arvey, Human Rights First / ICE Flight Monitor
Arvey directs research and analysis and oversees ICE Flight Monitor, part of the organization Human Rights First, which tracks all ICE flights. Human Rights First has offices in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
"The numbers are really massive," Arvey said. "Alexandria has just been kind of really this central point."
Alexandria Airport sits in a community known as England Airpark, which also is home to a retirement community, residential housing, a child-care center, an Army military training facility, a community college, an aviation technical school, private corporate offices and a championship golf course.
The WBRZ Investigative Unit tracked more than 2,036 different inbound flights that originated from 85 different locations both within the U.S. and around the world since last October.
(show graphic of flights here)
Where the Planes Go
WBRZ tracked 2,036 inbound flights from 85 locations, 1,920 outbound domestic flights, and 437 international flights
Top Domestic Destinations
International Deportation Flights 437 flights to 17 countries
"It's a hub. It works as a spoke as a wheel. Within the surrounding area of Alexandria, you have the detention centers, you have Jena, you have Pine Prairie, you have Basil, you have Richwood, you have Jackson, you have all of these detention centers where then you can house for long term people, for long periods of time, more people and then take groups of them to Alexandria."— Homero Lopez, New Orleans immigration attorney & former appellate immigration judge
Int'l Airport
"The Alexandria International Airport is a transportation hub for ICE Air Operations."
In a subsequent statement, ICE spokesperson Angelina Vicknair added: "This is a normal part of operations. ICE may increase removal flights to address case backlogs, resulting in higher volumes. Since January 2025, ASF (Alexandria Staging Facility) facilitated 152,701 removals on ICE Air Operations — approximately 24% of ICE's total removals."
Read the Full ICE Statement →Alexandria Ranks First
Since January 2025, Alexandria ranks first — ahead of Harlingen and El Paso, Texas — as the destination and origin — the main hub — of all ICE deportation flights inside the U.S. and around the world.
The Economics of Deportation
"There's nothing going on here that's illegal," said Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Economic and Industrial Development District (EEIDD), which is overseen by an appointed board and owns and runs the airport and surrounding community.
"Why should we protect it and try to hide it? You know, it's there. Everyone knows," Hennessy told WBRZ. "Look up in the sky and you see the planes landing and taking off, you know? So everyone in the region here is very aware of the activity."
Hennessy says the airport, which is always looking to attract business and income to the EEIDD, does enjoy an economic benefit from the ICE activity. Hennessy told WBRZ the EEIDD makes millions of dollars off the federal government's presence at the airport in the form of lease payments, landing fees, fuel taxes plus salaries paid to hundreds of support personnel.
"The state of Louisiana says this is a permissible business that can be here. My board has said, okay, we're good with this. They've approved the leases. They've approved the operating permits. And therefore, that's one of the businesses — we can't ignore the fiduciary responsibility that we have."— Ralph Hennessy, Executive Director, England Economic & Industrial Development District
Voices from the Ground
Advocates, attorneys, and those who passed through Alexandria's deportation pipeline
"The numbers are way up this past year. Both in terms of deportation flights and internal ICE transfer flights from all over the country to Alexandria."
"I try to focus on, you know, showing up for people in the way that I can. And also serve as the documentation and the witnessing that needs to happen now in order to change the system in the future, to stop this from happening again."
"It's really heavy. You know, one of the first flights I observed was a flight to Cameroon where there's a genocide going on, and knowing that — we are putting people on planes and turning them over to governments that are trying to harm them. That's really awful."
"The numbers are really massive. Alexandria has just been kind of really this central point."
"We're really concerned about kind of the lack of accountability from this administration and what this increase in number of flights means for communities across the country."
"After a while, you start figuring out they're moving me a lot. Well, you know, to be honest, I never heard of Alexandria before."
A three-decade Philadelphia resident, Della Valle was picked up by ICE last August while on vacation with his American family in the U.S. Virgin Islands. ICE officers kept him in the dark about where he was being taken.
"I was able to see one sign, one sign that says Alexander. Later I figured, I said, well, I don't know, I'm in Alexandria. But I had no idea whether it was Alexandria, Florida. Alexandria, Mississippi. Alexander, wherever. You know, no idea at all. You know, you ask and they don't tell you."
Methodology
WBRZ's Investigative Unit compiled all ICE flights from October 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 using data from ICE Flight Monitor, operated by Human Rights First. Reporters cross-referenced those records with comprehensive flight data purchased from FlightAware covering all aircraft movements in and out of Alexandria International Airport. Many flights were independently verified by WBRZ reporters on-site, observing aircraft tail N-numbers in person using publicly available FAA ownership data. The team conducted this six-month investigation continuously and witnessed dozens of ICE operations firsthand.
