ICE’s Flights Move from Hanscom to Portsmouth
On Saturday afternoon, 30 protesters stood along the roundabout that intersects Old Bedford Road and Hanscom Road. They were protesting against the Signature Aviation servicing ICE flights. The base is located at Hancom Airfield. The services there include de-icing the planes, fueling them, and wheeling staircases to planes so passengers can enter and exit them safely.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, all the ICE detainees from the Boston area and beyond have been taken to Hanscom, Detainees are put on a plane and fly to bigger detention centers in other states, like Louisiana and Texas.
Stephan Bader, a Concord resident who protested on Sunday said, “The least we can do is say that Signature Aviation should not be profiting from fueling the jets that carry detainees all over the country and then on for deportation. They’re making money off human hardship.”
What the protestors didn’t know is the that ICE detainees were no longer being flown out of Hanscom. The ICE’s flight moved them up to Pease in Portsmouth. the airport at Pease in Portsmouth is bigger. The Lexobserver asked the protesters about how they feel. “it feels like par for the course.” A Maynard resident Keith Olcott said.
“I think we’re going to end up traveling further and end up protesting in Portsmouth,” he also said. “We’re at a turning point. We have to keep fighting right now, all the time.”
the protesters continue to share their message of opposing Trump’s general deportation policies and his administration’s blind eye to due process.
A Lexington resident Fred Langenegger held a sign that read, “Due process for all immigrants,” which he said “about sums it up. Immigrants are human beings like all the rest of us. They are just as valuable and deserve total respect, I just want our government to follow and obey its laws. When our government doesn’t uphold its laws, it’s lost its way and that’s what our government has right now. It’s lost its way.”
As the protest go on, there were some people who opposed the protester, but even when there was people opposing them, people like Olcott and many of the protestors at the rally on Saturday plan to continue standing up for what they believe in and encourage others to do the same. “We don’t have to just sit passively in fear on our couches. We can come together,” Langenegger proclaimed. “We can call on our government, and if enough of us get together, we can compel our government to actually do the right thing.”
