Weekly Action: Stand Against ICE at Hanscom Field

ByToby Sackton

Weekly Action: Stand Against ICE at Hanscom Field

Join the DE-ICE Hanscom coalition every Friday to demand an immediate end to ICE deportation flights at Hanscom Field. These operations have forcibly removed over 2,000 Massachusetts residents, effectively stripping them of their due process rights by moving them out of state before they can access counsel. The coalition—uniting Lexington Alarm with JALSA, Boston Workers Circle, Lincoln Witness, and Indivisible chapters from Concord, Acton, Maynard, and the Greater Assabet area—is mobilizing to ensure Massport can no longer recklessly disregard our State Constitution.

When & Where: Standouts are held every Friday from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM at the Hanscom Rotary (intersection of Hanscom Drive and Old Bedford Road in Lincoln). Note: There will be NO standout on Friday, Nov 28th.

Logistics: Please park along Old Bedford Road or Hanscom Drive without blocking traffic or bike lanes. To stay informed on weekly updates and urgent actions, sign up for the DE-ICE email list here.

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    ByToby Sackton

    On December 12, Governor Maura Healey wrote to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE leadership denouncing the use of private charter flights at Hanscom Field to remove Massachusetts residents from the state.

    The letter came after months of organizing, research, and sustained pressure from Lexington Alarm and other groups north and west of Boston who founded DE-ICE Hanscom, began weekly standouts at the entrance of the airport, and began a letter campaign to Governor Healey and Massport.

    In her letter, Governor Healey wrote that ICE is using chartered aircraft at Hanscom to “quickly remove residents and sever them from their family, friends, and counsel without due process of law.” She emphasized that many of the people being detained and flown out of Massachusetts have no criminal convictions or charges, and that many are in the middle of lawful immigration processes through Massachusetts courts. She concluded “This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts. This practice must stop.”

  • Massport Has Facilitated over 6,000 ICE Deportations and Removals Through Hanscom

    ByToby Sackton

    Dec 10, 2025 – A new record of ICE flights from Hanscom Field, prepared by Human Rights First, suggests that over 6,000 individuals were flown out of Hanscom Field to U.S. prisons and/or unknown international destinations between January and November 2025.

    There were 114 ICE flights out of Hanscom since January, and Massport has denied any knowledge of these flights to the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission in an obvious lie. This report documents every ICE deportation flight departing Hanscom and charts the number going to various destinations, as shown below. With an average passenger load of 54 per flight, total ICE operations at Hanscom have involved more than 6000 people.

    The Batavia ICE facility in Buffalo, where the greatest number of flights are headed, has a capacity of 650 beds. Buffalo is also a transfer point to Moshannon, an ICE prison near Phillipsburg, PA. According to Investigative Post, a Buffalo-based nonprofit news organization, there are frequent reports of overcrowding and of detainees being forced to sleep on gymnasium floors

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    The Speeches of Lexington No Kings Day, March 28

    ByJohn

    photo by Sasha Patkin: Ayla Modirzadeh-March, LHS Junior, Speaking at No Kings Day in Lexington

    Nearly 2,000 people came to the Lexington Visitor’s Center, across from the Battle Green, on March 28, part of the largest single-day protest in American history. Nationally No Kings had more than 3,100 events nationwide, with an estimated 8 million participants, including 180,000 in Boston.

    Lexington Alarm and IndivisibleLAB held the rally in Lexington, after it became apparent that many wanted one here, as has been done 3 other times this past year. Of course, Lexington is among the most fitting locations. “The Battle of Lexington and Concord was here,” one eighth-grade resident told the Lexington Observer. “It was the first place where we took our stand against kings. And I feel like we’re doing that again.”

    Toby Sackton opened by naming the stakes directly. “We are not just fighting for survival, but for the rebirth of our Constitution and its promise.”

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    ByToby Sackton

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  • Protecting Massachusetts Communities Campaign Launched at State House Rally

    ByChristine Dall

    A coalition of immigrant rights organizations, legislators, union leaders, and concerned citizens gathered outside Boston’s Statehouse on Oct. 22 to launch Protecting Massachusetts Communities (PMC) — a campaign to legally defend against the freedom of ICE agents to target, hunt down, arrest and deport the thousands of immigrants and refugees living and working in our communities.

    “Operation Patriot,” the federal government’s escalation of immigrant deportations from Massachusetts last spring netted 1,500 arrests in May alone, mostly in the Boston “sanctuary city” area.”Operation Patriot 2.0”, which began in September, has yielded another 1,500 arrests is ongoing.

    ICE’s growing use of violence in abducting immigrants spreads a constant fear in their homes and work places, not only in metropolitan Boston and its suburbs but also in Worcester, Lowell, Fall River, Framingham and Nantucket. Currently, the operations are reported to be moving into the Merrimack Valley region. Immigrants are afraid to take public transportation, go to work or send their children to school for fear of being trapped in a massive ICE dragnet based on racial profiling, now encouraged by the Supreme Court.

    Contrary to federal claims of targeting only hardcore criminals, up to 80% of those indiscriminately scooped up, detained, stripped of their rights and deported are found to have no criminal record.