"Handcuffed, Heads Bowed": Inside US Deportation Flight Carrying Migrants

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released a video of a deportation flight, showing the tightly controlled process of how enforcement works on the ground. The footage shows migrant "aliens" in handcuffs and ankle shackles, their heads bowed, while they are being escorted by officers from transport vehicles to an aircraft.

The flight took off from Gary, Indiana, and, according to ICE, was carrying "dozens of aliens with one-way tickets out of the United States," according to the agency.

Posting the video, ICE wrote, "Have you ever seen a deportation flight up close and personal? This one lifted off from Gary, Ind, carrying dozens of aliens with one-way tickets out of the United States."

In the video, detainees walk slowly up the aircraft's stairway under the supervision of armed ICE officers. Inside the aircraft, deportees are shown seated with ICE personnel stationed throughout. The clip ends with the plane flying away.

"This is going on in many other airports throughout the country," an ICE official said in the video.

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Twenty-eight per cent of US residents are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, amounting to roughly 93 million people, according to an analysis of US Census Bureau data.

According to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted in June, about 23 per cent of US adults worry that they or someone close to them could be deported.

Among immigrants, concern is even higher. About 43 per cent say they worry about deportation affecting themselves, their family, or close friends, up from 33 per cent in March. US-born adults with at least one immigrant parent are also concerned, with 34 per cent worried.

As of mid-2025, the US has deported over 207,000 people, according to data reported by the Department of Homeland Security.