Noem's luxury 'deportation' jet is the tip of the ICE-berg

NBC News reported last week what avgeeks and ICE watchers have been talking about for months: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been flying around on a recently acquired luxury Boeing 737. DHS told NBC the jet, which is worth an estimated $70 million and comes with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, and four flat-screen TVs, would serve a “dual purpose” for Cabinet-level official travel and deportations.

Obviously, this is bullshit – flight data shows it has never done anything resembling a deportation – but the situation is actually so much worse than this one 737. Over the last four months, Noem’s DHS has acquired at least nine new airplanes, with another on the way. Of those, half appear to be luxury jets.

The latest, a 2016 Gulfstream 650, popped onto my radar (pun intended) on Feb. 20, flying from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Nashville and back, registered to DHS. A day earlier, it had been registered to Valkyrie Aviation Holdings Group, part of a shadowy network of shell companies connected to MAGA-aligned former State Department officials. Together, these companies have gotten more than a billion dollars in DHS contracts in a matter of months.

This story will put together reporting from Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, The War Zone, and The Washington Post, along with new information and my own reporting, to reveal the full scale of DHS's fleet expansion.

https://gillianbrockell.ghost.io/noems-luxury-d-jet-for-deportations-is-the-tip-of-the-ice-berg/