Anti-ICE activists demand end to shackles on WA deportation flights despite documented attacks on federal officers

Approximately two dozen protesters marched Tuesday to a Federal Aviation Administration office in Des Moines, Washington, and attempted to deliver a petition with more than 950 signatures calling for an end to shackling detainees aboard ICE flights operating out of King County International Airport, commonly known as Boeing Field.

Video from a publicly available livestream showed detainees boarding an aircraft with restraints around their ankles and their wrists restrained near their waists. "We want them to enforce their regulations, their existing regulations in the federal code, that the FAA is supposed to enforce, that say people in chains are not safe on flights," protester Justina Brown told KING 5. The protesters cited 49 CFR § 1544.221, a federal aviation security regulation governing prisoners traveling under the escort of armed law enforcement officers. One provision states that prisoners covered by the regulation must have their hands restrained while also requiring that "leg irons are not used."

However, the protesters' argument faces a significant limitation written directly into the regulation: the entire section containing the prohibition on leg irons expressly does not apply to nonviolent immigration detainees. "This section does not apply to the escort of non-violent detainees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service," the regulation states.

In other words, the prohibition on leg irons cited by the protesters is contained in a regulatory section that explicitly exempts nonviolent INS detainees from its requirements. INS' immigration enforcement responsibilities were transferred to agencies within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, in 2003.

The regulation separately establishes security requirements for prisoners who do fall under the section, including different requirements based on the risk posed by the prisoner. It defines a "high risk prisoner" as someone determined to be an exceptional escape risk who has been charged with or convicted of a violent crime.

The protesters' demand to eliminate ankle restraints from ICE flights also comes despite documented cases of detainees becoming violent during deportation operations. In one case, Moroccan national Zakaria Taoufik was already restrained with handcuffs and leg shackles when ICE officers attempted to deport him from Dulles International Airport. Taoufik was being deported following an aggravated felony conviction and had already successfully prevented an earlier attempt to remove him from the United States.

According to the Department of Justice, Taoufik told the pilot that he would not allow himself to be deported and threatened to fight officers. Once aboard the aircraft, Taoufik screamed threats and obscenities, repeatedly slammed his head into an entertainment screen until it shattered, attempted to head-butt and bite ICE officers, and deliberately spat into officers' faces, striking two officers in the eyes. The captain ordered Taoufik and the ICE officers off the aircraft because of his disruptive behavior. Taoufik was subsequently convicted of assaulting federal officers and failing to depart the United States and sentenced to five years in federal prison.

In another case, ICE officers were loading 112 Haitian nationals onto a deportation aircraft in San Antonio bound for Port-au-Prince in September 2021 when a disturbance erupted aboard the plane.

Federal prosecutors identified Haitian national Jubenson Domenique as the principal instigator. When three ICE officers attempted to remove Domenique from the aircraft, he bit all three, breaking their skin and leaving teeth marks, according to the Department of Justice. One officer was treated at a hospital and underwent treatment and testing for potential infections. A federal jury later convicted Domenique on three counts of assaulting federal officers.

The Department of Homeland Security has also documented another removal-flight incident involving a handcuffed detainee who attempted to bite and spit at officers. After an officer improperly attempted to place masking tape over the detainee's mouth, DHS investigators determined that the tape violated ICE policy but said a spit hood would have been appropriate and recommended making spit hoods available aboard ICE transport aircraft.

Tuesday's demonstration comes after years of efforts by anti-deportation activists and King County officials to scrutinize ICE operations at Boeing Field. King County hired a full-time "Flight Monitoring and Outreach Coordinator" this summer who works 40 hours per week observing charter operations, counting immigration detainees boarding and leaving aircraft and monitoring ground operations for potential airport rule violations.

The position followed years of organized pressure from immigration activists and a 2026 executive order from King County Executive Girmay Zahilay reaffirming and expanding the county's ICE flight transparency program.

La Resistencia, a Tacoma-based anti-deportation organization, had already been using volunteers to monitor ICE operations at Boeing Field. The group has operated a "No Deportation Flights" campaign and pressured county officials for increased scrutiny of the federal operations.

The county's monitoring program followed an unsuccessful attempt to stop ICE flights from using Boeing Field. In 2019, then-King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order seeking to prevent fixed-base operators at the county-owned airport from servicing ICE charter flights. The federal government sued King County, and a federal district court ruled against the county in 2023, finding that its restrictions unlawfully discriminated against the federal government. The Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the judgment in 2024.

After losing in federal court, the county shifted from trying to block the flights to tracking them. Constantine issued a replacement order directing county agencies to "track and document" ICE's use of Boeing Field and make information about the operations publicly available. Zahilay expanded the program after taking office.

King County now maintains an ICE flight webpage, publishes flight information, operates four 24-hour livestream cameras showing portions of the airfield, offers notifications about ICE flights and directs members of the public to a service where individual aircraft can be followed in real time.

During the first weeks of August, county data showed 285 detainees moving through Boeing Field aboard five flights. ICE-chartered aircraft that had previously arrived approximately once per week were operating roughly three times per week by August.

According to KING 5, 11 ICE flights transported nearly 500 detainees out of King County in September, including flights to Denver, Colorado, and Mesa, Arizona. Some detainees may subsequently be transported to other detention facilities or deported from the United States.

The protesters were not permitted inside the FAA building Tuesday to personally deliver their petition and were told they could mail it.