The air charter company that arranges the majority of deportation flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violated labor laws while carrying out its federal contract, a Labor Department investigation has found.
The ICE contractor was ordered to pay more than $140,000 in back wages owed to the Louisiana employees of a company it hired to provide security services, according to a statement released yesterday by the Labor Department.
Classic Air Charter, a Florida-based broker working for ICE since 2017, manages the hiring of all the companies needed to operate the agency’s daily deportation flights within the Americas. It also handles ICE’s most expensive trips abroad, used for “high risk” deportees, such as those who did not cooperate with earlier deportation attempts or are considered national security threats.