Colorado’s Key Lime Air Operates Flights of Detainees for ICE

Colorado-based airline Key Lime Air is running flights of detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to government data, flight tracking and analysis by Colorado Newsline.

Personnel in reflective vests led 11 people in shackles off a plane registered to Key Lime at King County International Airport outside Seattle on Thursday, October 9, a little before noon. A short time later, another 38 people in shackles were escorted off a bus, patted down and led onto the plane, which then flew to El Paso, Texas. White trash bags that appeared to contain their personal belongings sat on the tarmac.

Cameron Satterfield, a spokesperson for the airport, confirmed that the flight was operated for ICE by Key Lime.

A Newsline reporter observed the Key Lime plane through a county-run livestream of the tarmac. Advocates say such flights that shuffle people across the country can be damaging for mental health, family connections and legal access.

“Transfers are inefficient, chaotic and can feel punitive, particularly when people are spirited away from their community, family and lawyers to an unfamiliar place where they have no ties,” said Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

A similar scene with another plane full of shackled passengers played out in Alexandria, Louisiana, on October 11, observed by a reporter at the airport. Newsline has also traced that plane to Key Lime, based on online databases. The two planes appear to have performed similar immigration-related operations every day for more than a month.

The company is the first known Colorado-based airline to participate in immigration enforcement flights since the Trump administration launched mass deportation efforts earlier this year.

The aircraft do not bear Key Lime logos or other company designators, but they display unique registration numbers.

Contacted by a reporter and asked to confirm that two planes bearing the registration numbers Newsline tied to Key Lime are involved in immigration operations, CEO Cliff Honeycutt referred questions to CSI Aviation and declined to disclose details about any contracts. CSI is one of the largest federal contractors for ICE flights and has an approximately $563 million contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reporter asked if Key Lime operates under a CSI subcontract.

“Yes, but again, we really don’t discuss our customers’ arrangements,” Honeycutt said.

A Federal Aviation Administration spreadsheet for certain commercial aircraft identifies one of the planes — the one observed near Seattle — as being operated by Key Lime.

Ch-aviation, a widely cited aviation information resource, designates both planes as being operated by Key Lime.

In addition to confirmation from Satterfield that one of the planes had transported detainees for ICE, the planes are tied to ICE activity through the flight patterns of the aircraft and other indicators.

The company is part of a growing network of operators participating in immigration enforcement, especially flights between ICE detention centers throughout the country. Human Rights First, a nonprofit that oversees the ICE Flight Monitor project, noted a monthly record of 969 domestic immigration enforcement flights in September, including 83 by Key Lime.

An unnamed ICE spokesperson referred questions to Key Lime, which, aside from the exchange with Honeycutt, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A company representative declined to speak with a Newsline reporter who visited Key Lime’s headquarters.

‘Sense of confusion’

Domestic air transfers of the kind Key Lime is performing create layers of disruption for community members, Lunn said.

“Attorneys are forced to figure out how to reach clients in facilities far from their offices or the courts where they practice. Family members are no longer able to visit their loved ones when they’re simply too far away. All of these breeds a sense of confusion, and the most common assumption people make when they’re being put on a plane is that they are being deported,” Lunn said.

The Trump administration aims to deport millions of immigrants without permanent legal status, and has expanded federal capacity to detain and deport immigrants in record numbers. That includes $170 billion for immigration enforcement efforts, construction on new detention centers and plans to open shuttered prisons for ICE detention, including at least two in Colorado. The White House claims there have been over 400,000 deportations since the start of President Donald Trump’s term in January.

Top ICE detention hubs

In mid-September, the two Key Lime planes suddenly changed their routes and began flying to and from major immigration detention hubs, primarily in the South, according to flight data from ADS-B Exchange, an online flight tracking database.

A Newsline analysis shows the two planes frequent ICE detention hubs, including El Paso, Texas; Harlingen, Texas; and Alexandria, Louisiana. Those three cities are the sites of by far the most transfer and deportation flights in the country, according to the New York Times. Alexandria is often the last stop before someone is sent on a flight out of the country.

Between September 15, when the planes changed their flight patterns, and October 17, at least one of the planes stopped in Alexandria at least once a day, Newsline analysis showed. Most days both planes traveled to or from the city at least once, according to flight data. For example, one of the planes on October 7 flew from Alexandria to Nashville, back to Alexandria, and then on to Tampa. It ended the night back in Alexandria.

During the time period Newsline analyzed, the Key Lime planes were in Alexandria 59 times, Harlingen 11 times, El Paso 14 times and Lake City — a 15-minute drive from the Everglades detention center Republicans branded “Alligator Alcatraz” — nine times.

ICE flights obscured

Information about ICE flights is often obscured, and the flights can be hard to identify and track. Federal authorities release scant information, and ICE does not publish schedules or logs of agency flights. Carriers can block certain registration numbers from public flight tracking websites under the Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed program, and it appears the registration numbers of both Key Lime planes were blocked from the popular flight tracking website FlightAware.

But seasoned flight trackers have highlighted Key Lime’s work for ICE for weeks. It was first identified in a post on BlueSky by a user who goes by JJ in DC, a military veteran with experience tracking flights. Planes carrying detained immigrants for ICE are increasingly likely to use atypical call signs, identifiers used during flight communication. The two Key Lime planes flew under its call sign “LYM” until mid-September, then suddenly switched to “TYS” or “TYSON.” Advocates say that is a key tell of an ICE flight that they first noticed with various airlines in late March. It is the same call sign that was used for Trump’s personal plane after he was first elected in 2016 and for other high-profile presidential candidates protected by the Secret Service.

“We just saw this big shift and we’ve noticed that a big part of ICE contractors are now using these faux call signs to obscure their activity,” Guadalupe Gonzalez, a flight monitoring coordinator for Washington-based La Resistencia, said. “I haven’t seen a flight under TYSON that hasn’t been operating under ICE.”

Key Lime is based at Centennial Airport in Arapahoe County and also offers passenger charter flights and scheduled commercial flights through its subsidiary Denver Air Connection.

The two planes in question are Embraer commuter jets that can hold about 50 passengers, according to multiple online databases.

The planes are owned by an Oregon company, CBG LLC. It is common for an aircraft’s owner and operator to be different entities. Key Lime regularly operates CBG planes. Key Lime’s 2009 application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for commuter air carrier authorization indicates the three owners of Key Lime were also the three owners of CBG.

Key Lime is the only Colorado company known to be operating ICE flights, according to advocates. New Mexico-based CSI Aviation subcontracts to other airlines, including Avelo, Global Exchange and Eastern Air Express. 

This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline. In response to reporters about Key Lime partnering with ICE to transport immigrant detainees, area Immigrant Partnership Teams will be protesting at the Colorado-based company’s headquarters at Centennial Airport from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 9.