King County Hires Flight Monitor for Boeing Field ICE Flights

King County in Washington has hired a flight monitoring and outreach coordinator to ensure that ICE flights at Boeing Field follow safety regulations and report on handcuffed and shackled passengers.

The new position, which started after a month of training, is not exclusively focused on ICE flights but covers all flights with more than 18 passengers or involving buses taking passengers to and from planes.

Activists have long complained that King County was not doing enough to monitor immigration enforcement flights using its Seattle airport. In response, the county has echoed concerns about inhumane treatment and has fulfilled a three-year-old promise to document how ICE is using the airport by publishing passenger counts on its website every Tuesday.

According to the county's figures, for the first five flights in August, ICE boarded or deplaned 285 people at Boeing Field. This move has been seen as an important step towards transparency by Savi Arvey of Human Rights First, who oversees ICE Flight Monitor, a data tracking project of the national advocacy group.