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

US immigration enforcement flights are producing hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions as officials shuttle unprecedented numbers of people to detention centers far from home and deport them to countries across the world. Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has spurred at least an 80% increase in such flights year over year, accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, according to data analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian. “We’ve seen a staggering increase of all US immigration [enforcement] flights,” including “the number of flights as well as the locations that the flights are going to,” said Savitri Arvey, director of research and analysis for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First (HRF), the US advocacy group. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ( ICE ) air operations pumped into the air an estimated 335,876 tonnes (37,0240 US tons) of carbon emissions in 2025, up 88% from the year before. And the first four months of 2026 show the federal agency is on track to contribute even more to global heating this year from such flights, the Guardian can reveal. Those emissions exacerbate the climate crisis , a driver of irregular migration in itself, while polluting the air in local communities used as flight hubs, such as Phoenix, El Paso and Harlingen in Texas, and Alexandria in Louisiana. …