With ICE Flights, Former Sen. Humphrey Suggests Pease Become A 'Sanctuary' Airport

By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org, InDepth NH

PORTSMOUTH, NH — The chair of the Pease Development Authority board said he would have legal counsel explore the idea from former U.S. Senator Gordon Humphrey, R-NH, that it has the option to declare Pease a "sanctuary" airport and refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities at Tuesday's meeting.

Humphrey said the PDA could declare non-cooperation with the federal government in such flights.

"You have the option. I plead with you to use it," Humphrey said of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation and transfer flights out of Pease International Airport.

Steve Duprey, chair of the PDA board, said he would have legal counsel look into that possibility. "We are not unsympathetic" with Humphrey and the overflow crowd of ICE detention and deportation opponents who came from across the state to its 8:30 a.m. board meeting to demand a halt to future flights.

Opponents of ICE at the meeting said volunteers have watched and filmed from the gate and counted as many 407 people shackled and marched on to airplanes. They have not been given any due process and are being taken away from their families and essential work, the PDA board was told.

They also said PDA has given them access to the tarmac to board planes. Duprey said that is the extent to which the PDA employees have been involved.

Duprey cited a memo which was circulated from the board's legal counsel which he said explained the board's legal options to prohibit ICE flights and spoke of counsel's identification of "limitations" and impacts which could be "extraordinarily severe."

While he noted public comments that there is a negative economic impact to losing essential workers through ICE detentions, Duprey said there would also be a negative economic impact if the airport was to be closed by federal officials.

Many speakers addressed the moral and ethical concerns of such deportations and questioned the legality of the actions under the Constitution.

A letter from the Council of Churches was read identifying the "deep moral concern," for the actions which began in July and have now ceased, which some theorized perhaps only temporarily, due to the reopening of Hanscom Field airport in Bedford, Mass.

Whether or not the Trump Administration is watching public activism around these flights is not known but it may not be coincidental that public activism in Massachusetts led to the relocation of flights to Pease.

On Sept. 15, WBUR in Boston reported ICE flights had returned after being halted in July.

WBUR said "Human Rights First, a nonprofit that tracks ICE flights, has logged at least five trips to Hanscom over the past week. The activity comes two months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it stopped using the airport, located 20 miles northwest of Boston."

An ICE spokesman confirmed to WBUR that the agency has restarted the flights in Hanscom.

“Flying aliens out of Hanscom allows ICE to move detainees quickly from the intake center at Burlington to a detention center once they have been processed,” the spokesman, James Covington, said in a statement.

The Boston public radio station said The Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Hanscom, has previously said ICE does not need the state agency's permission to use the facility and does not alert the airport when it lands flights there.

At the monthly meeting of the Pease Development Authority board on Tuesday, Kendra Ford said that the last flights out of Pease that volunteers could verify were on Sept. 4.

She said volunteers watched from the airport gate as the shackled individuals boarded a white painted plane with no identifying markers and saw "more than 400 humans torn away" from families and work in flights out of Pease on Aug. 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 28 and Sept. 2 and 4 when there were two flights.

David Holt of Occupy Seacoast said there are economic factors which are one of the Pease board's most important charges "we are losing people who are doing essential work."

Both Occupy NH Seacoast, and Mount Washington Valley Resistance, in the Conway area are working on the “ICE Out of Pease” campaign, which is led by the American Friends Service Committee and includes Veterans for Peace, 350NH, NH Youth Movement, Southern New Hampshire Indivisible, Southern NH Democratic Socialists of America, the Kent Street Coalition, and residents from across New England.

In a press statement, Sarah Cornell of Portsmouth said, “We have seen first-hand the abuse and transfer of at least 407 individuals by ICE agents using flights in and out of Pease. Commercial operators of ICE flights from Pease are GlobalX, Eastern Air, and Avelo, which have moved people from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts to far-flung parts of the United States.”

The release noted the “Stop Avelo” campaign continues in Manchester, where Avelo still operates commercial flights.

On Aug. 19 another monthly Pease meeting found board members confronted with angry residents and a petition opposing the flights signed by more than 2,000.

Since Aug. 8, there have been regular “ICE Out of Pease” demonstrations around Portsmouth, including a two-day demonstration during the “Thunder over NH” air show September 6-7.

On Sept. 5, the press release said ICE contract flights resumed at Hanscom Air Field and have continued daily carrying an estimated more than 400 individuals to date.

The release noted opposition groups in Massachusetts are re-mobilizing and a Hanscom Advisory Committee meeting is also today, Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Humphrey, a consistent presence at “ICE Out of Pease” demonstrations and a nationally known conservative Republican, has said the Constitution of the United States makes clear that the states are not servants of the federal government, and the PDA is completely at liberty to refuse services of its employees to assist ICE.

"Surely ICE doesn't show up unannounced," Humphrey told the PDA board Tuesday. "Surely they email and call and say 'hey we're on the way,' to your employees. Your employees need not talk to them. Let ICE do its dirty work by itself, give them an electronic key to the gate and let them do everything they think they need to do but don't be part of it," the former Senator said. "Please."

He reminded the PDA board they are sworn to the Constitution and should uphold it.

"You're sworn, as officers of the state," he said, and should, "Stand up to federal agencies that are denying constitutional rights."

State Sen. David Meuse, D-Portsmouth, posted on Twitter Tuesday: "Pushing back this morning on ICE operations out of Pease. Every peaceful protest and honest conversation we have with our neighbors about these issues helps. Every time we do something, it means something. Be the sand in fascism’s gears, people." #ICEOutOfPease #NHPolitics.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.