Documenting the deportation flights that leave Minnesota each day : NPR
Nick Benson tracks deportation flights from Minneapolis-St. Minneapolis Paul International Airport, February 3, 2026, as part of Operation Metro Surge.
Jaida Gray Eagle for NPR
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Jaida Gray Eagle for NPR
MINNEAPOLIS – Nick Benson stands out from the cold in an elevator terminal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international, looking out the window at the tarmac. Commercial planes speed by, but a charter flight is parked far from the gates, a staircase leading to its open door.
Wearing a checkered button-down, the 41-year-old leans over a digital camera on a tripod, with a long telephoto lens pointed at this plane, and counts slowly.
“So it’s today’s one for now,” he said softly. “And there’s number two at the top of the stairs.”
Benson counts people getting out of a minibus, up the steps and onto the plane.
These detained migrants, their hands and feet shackled, are being flown out of Minnesota, caught up in President Trump’s sweeping federal immigration campaign that began in Minneapolis last December. The administration billed it as the largest operation ever.
Federally chartered deportation flights on ICE Air, as the Department of Homeland Security calls itare not new. This was also happening under the Biden administration. But during Trump’s second term, their frequency and reach have nearly doubled, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an advocacy initiative that monitors. Flights have also become increasingly difficult to track and passenger information or data is difficult to obtain. This is where observers like Benson come in.
Today’s plane will go to Texas.
Nick Benson tracks deportation flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul at Minneapolis International Airport on February 3, 2026, as part of Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.
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“It’s just happening in the background,” Benson says, gesturing to the rest of the airport. “Here, you could be sitting in the Delta lounge eating your cheese and crackers, and you wouldn’t even have noticed anything unusual was happening through the window.”
Benson is a professional aircraft enthusiast. He runs an app to let other enthusiasts know where to see unusual planes coming and going from airports.
But in recent months, it has started tracking these ICE flights to and from Minneapolis, counting those taken on board as they are forced to leave the state.
“What’s important to me is the count, because there is no other source of quantitative data on what’s actually happening,” he says.
Nick Benson tracks deportation flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul at Minneapolis International Airport on February 3, 2026, as part of Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.
Gray Eagle Jaida
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Gray Eagle Jaida
The federal government could be a source, but the Trump administration has been opaque about the data collected in its immigration enforcement operations.
NPR asked the Department of Homeland Security for the number of people arrested and deported from Minnesota in recent months. Instead, DHS responded by saying that 3,500 arrests were made during the operation, without providing details, and did not specify where those people were sent.
“President Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem are putting the American people first by deporting illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities,” DHS Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement.
The lack of transparency is one reason Benson, along with other members of the Minneapolis-based activist group MN50501, has started keeping detailed spreadsheets of every theft he can — 42 in January alone.
“It was one of the best ways I could help, and I’m happy to be here to be able to do it,” he says.
Benson has a wife and three children. He works full time to manage his app. But he often drops everything with just an hour or two’s notice, to go there and observe.
The final count for today is 19 people. Other days it’s over 100.
The plane door is closed, the steps are removed, and finally Benson watches the flight take off.
“Another sobering moment in an endless string of sobering moments here,” he says, looking out the window.
Benson estimates that 2,339 people flew out of Minnesota in January, when flights began operating daily, sometimes twice a day.
“It’s extremely valuable. It’s not something we can track,” says Savi Arvey, who oversees ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, an advocacy group that has been recording these types of flights by DHS for several years, across the country and around the world.
Arvey’s team controls flight tracking themselves, but they have no visibility into who is actually on board the plane – that’s where ground observers, like Benson, come in.
Nick Benson tracks deportation flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul at Minneapolis International Airport on February 3, 2026, as part of Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.
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Gray Eagle Jaida
“Knowing that someone is there, counting the number of people and observing what happens when people board these flights is really essential,” Arvey says.
Many immigration lawyers and advocates have noted that detainees are often taken quickly to the airport, sometimes 24 to 48 hours after being detained, especially here in Minneapolis – something made possible by daily flights.
“What worries us most is that people are being put on these flights without due process,” says Arvey. “Often, without the opportunity to have their asylum claim heard before an immigration judge. People are put on these flights only to be deported, with their temporary protected status revoked.”
Trump administration officials have been open about plans to expand ICE Air operations to facilitate mass deportations promised on the campaign trail. In December, DHS signs contract to purchase six 737sto start its own fleet according to the Washington Post.
Back home, Benson flips through his spreadsheets, which detail each flight: time, date, tail number, airline. And of course, the number of passengers.
Nick Benson tracks deportation flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul at Minneapolis International Airport on February 3, 2026, as part of Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.
Gray Eagle Jaida
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Gray Eagle Jaida
He says sometimes the weight of what he witnesses every day catches up with him.
“These people, when they come up the steps in chains, a lot of them stop for a moment at the top of the steps, and they look around, and I can’t even imagine what they’re thinking,” he says.
But Benson says he’s going to keep doing it.
“I think this is the most important work I will ever have the opportunity to do,” he said, starting to cry a little. “But I really wish I didn’t have to.”
And then he looks at his watch. Another flight is coming soon.
Nick Benson grabs his tripod and camera and heads out the door to count.
