A new report from the British newspaper The Guardian is drawing attention for arguing that expanded deportation operations carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are contributing to worsening global warming because of increased carbon emissions from ICE flights.
The article, published May 26, cited figures from immigration advocacy groups claiming that ICE’s air operations produced significantly more greenhouse gas emissions this year as deportation activity intensified.
“We’ve seen a staggering increase of all U.S. immigration [enforcement] flights,” Savitri Arvey, a research director at the pro-migration organization Human Rights First, told the newspaper.
The Guardian article claimed:
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) air operations pumped into the air an estimated 335,876 tonnes (370,240 US tons) of carbon emissions in 2025, up 88 percent from the year before.”
The report also acknowledged, however, that emissions tied to ICE flights remain extremely small compared to the broader airline industry. According to the comparison cited, ICE aircraft emissions amount to roughly one-thousandth of the greenhouse gases generated by domestic U.S. airlines and approximately one two-thousandths of total aircraft emissions recorded in 2017.
Supporters of the deportation operations argue that the flights help remove illegal immigrants who entered the country during President Joe Biden’s administration and contend that stricter enforcement brings benefits such as reduced crime, higher wages, cheaper housing, and greater political influence for American citizens.
ICE is currently operating around three times as many monthly flights in 2026 as it did in 2024 — approximately 1,800 flights each month compared to about 600 two years earlier. Part of the increase stems from the agency transporting illegal immigrants from northern states to detention centers in Texas and other southern states while awaiting immigration proceedings.
Migrants are often held for weeks as ICE works through legal and administrative barriers put in place by progressive immigration policies and court requirements.
Immigration advocacy groups continue pushing back aggressively against President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda and are attempting to rally opposition to the administration’s enforcement efforts.
“The pollution that these flights cause is causing harms to every single family in the United States.” Brett Heinz, global policy coordinator at the pro-migration American Friends Service Committee, told Guardian reporter Alexandra Villareal, who previously worked for the pro-immigration National Immigration Forum.
“When we try to inflict suffering on immigrants… it also inflicts suffering on ourselves, on everyone,” he said, adding, “There’s no one that escapes when we’re trying to increase human misery.”
At the same time, critics of illegal immigration argue that American communities continue to suffer from crimes committed by migrants who entered the country unlawfully, an issue they say is frequently minimized by progressive activists and media outlets supportive of expanded immigration.
The hot air produced by these idiots is far worse.
People are suffering.