Revealed: huge climate cost of harmful emissions from US immigration flights

A dramatic surge in US immigration enforcement flights under Donald Trump’s second term has sharply increased the country’s carbon emissions, deepening the climate crisis while accelerating the mass deportation of migrants. Data shared exclusively with *The Guardian* shows that United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) air operations emitted an estimated 335,876 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025—an 88 percent increase from the previous year. The trend has accelerated further in 2026, with federal officials on track to surpass last year’s emissions as flights to detention hubs multiply across the country.

The scale of these operations reflects a broader expansion in immigration enforcement. According to Human Rights First, the number of flights, their destinations, and the volume of people transported have all risen sharply in response to the Trump administration’s accelerated deportation agenda. “We’ve seen a staggering increase in all US immigration enforcement flights,” said Savitri Arvey, director of research and analysis at the advocacy group. Many of these operations originate or connect through key hubs such as Phoenix, Arizona; El Paso and Harlingen, Texas; and Alexandria, Louisiana—areas already facing significant air quality challenges.

Critics argue that the environmental and humanitarian costs of these flights are intertwined. Brett Heinz, global policy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, which provided emissions calculations, warned that the pollution harms both migrant communities and local residents. “When we try to inflict suffering on immigrants, we also inflict suffering on ourselves,” Heinz said. “The pollution from these flights causes harm to every single family in the United States.” Meanwhile, immigration data shows that the crackdown has disproportionately targeted non-criminal migrants, with over 70 percent of the more than 60,000 detainees held as of early April having no prior convictions.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, had previously pledged to prioritize the deportation of serious offenders. Yet recent figures reveal a different reality: the rate of repatriation within two months for detainees without criminal records or existing deportation orders has doubled. These developments underscore the dual cost of the administration’s immigration strategy—escalating human displacement amid a worsening environmental crisis driven, in part, by the very flights intended to enforce border control.