A Peruvian man threatened with removal to the Central African Republic is safe for now after an appeals court reiterated late Wednesday night that its decision last week overturning the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy was effective immediately. But hours after that decision came down, flight data shows an ICE charter jet landed in two known third-country removal “host” countries in Africa, while another appeared to be heading toward the continent, raising the possibility that other immigrants may have been or are about to be removed unlawfully.
The Peruvian man, identified in court filings as “John Doe,” has judicial protections from deportation to Peru and has been held in ICE custody in Massachusetts since July, one of his attorneys previously told the Prospect. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice asked a federal judge to lift her stay on Doe’s case so that ICE could transfer him to another facility where he would be put on a plane to the Central African Republic.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the landmark D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security case last week struck down DHS’s third-country removal policy. But a Department of Justice attorney in Doe’s case claimed that because the appeals court had not yet issued a “mandate” (an official notification to the lower court of its decision), its stay on the lower court’s decision—which also overturned the DHS policy—was still in effect, and Doe could still be subjected to third-country removal.
Hours after the decision came down, flight data shows an ICE charter jet landed in two known third-country removal “host” countries in Africa.
Put simply, DOJ claimed the criming could continue until the paperwork was done.
Attorneys for the D.V.D. plaintiffs filed an emergency motion for clarification Wednesday evening, asking the appeals court to weigh in on the claim. They cited the Prospect’s story about Doe and revealed they had learned the impending ICE flight was scheduled to depart out of Alexandria, Louisiana, and make third-country removal stops to Rwanda and Burundi, in addition to the Central African Republic.
Hours later, shortly before midnight, the appeals court’s three-sentence response was unequivocal: “Consistent with this court’s September 18, 2026, Judgment, the March 16, 2026, stay pending appeal is dissolved.” The lower court’s decision that the policy is unlawful is in effect.
In an emergency hearing Thursday morning, one of Doe’s attorneys said a DOJ attorney continued to argue the mandate issue, but the judge refused to budge that the appeals court’s clarification said what it said. No final ruling was made on Doe’s request to be released from detention, but the judge also didn’t lift the stay barring his removal from his current location, the attorney, Mary Holper, said.
ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on the rulings, but the Prospect’s earlier story about Doe’s case spurred some bizarre responses from DHS. When asked about DOJ’s claims in Doe’s case and flight data showing an ICE charter plane preparing to fly to Ghana, a DHS representative who did not identify themselves responded, “Please provide an A# or DOB”—referring to Doe’s “alien” number and date of birth, a ludicrous thing to ask for given that neither were needed to respond to court filings or flight data.
Hours after the story published, DHS spokesman Micah Bock sent another email, writing: “When you fail to provide us with the necessary information to verify your claims, you’re wasting our time, which is ironic considering we at DHS can’t think of a bigger waste of time than writing for the American Prospect.”
As a matter of logic, a writer wasting time at the Prospect and also wasting DHS’s time would have been fitting, not ironic.
While ICE followed the court order barring the agency from removing Doe from Massachusetts, the deportation machinery was still moving in a way that may violate the appeals court’s immediate bar on third-country removals.
When the clarification was filed at 11:36 p.m. Eastern time, a Gulfstream V chartered by ICE was flying over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, headed toward West Africa. It was the same plane the Prospect had mentioned a day earlier as having a flight plan to Ghana, which has taken more third-country nationals from ICE than any other African country.
Typically in immigration cases that involve an ICE flight, the jurisdiction of the departure location applies until the aircraft lands somewhere else. (This is why activists have built the Habeas Flight Watch live map, to help legal teams file accurate flight data, since Trump officials have been cagey or misleading in the past.)
Flight data shows the plane landed in Ghana, at approximately 7:53 a.m. local time, 3:53 a.m. Eastern time. Three hours later, it landed in Liberia, another of ICE’s third-country removal “host” countries. At time of publication, it was in Dakar, Senegal, where ICE charter crews typically lay over for crew rest.
DHS, ICE, and Talon Air, the Farmingdale, New York–based charter operator, did not respond to requests for comment about the ramifications of the court’s clarification or if there were third-country nationals on board the aircraft.
Of the approximately 90 planes in ICE’s charter fleet, only a handful are used for flights to Africa. And of those, only one was in Alexandria—where the D.V.D. plaintiff’s attorneys said the third-country removal flight to the Central African Republic was supposed to depart from—late Wednesday and early Thursday: a Gulfstream IV operated by Boca Raton–based Journey Aviation.
Flight data shows the aircraft took off at 12:32 a.m. local time, 1:32 a.m. Eastern time, early Thursday—about two hours after the appeals court’s clarification immediately stopping the third-country removal policy.
About three hours later, the aircraft landed in the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba—a first for Journey in the 18 months it has been flying for ICE. Approximately 12 Somali men in ICE custody have been imprisoned at Gitmo since last month, as Mother Jones and other news media have reported.
The plane next landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico—a common fuel stop for ICE charter planes headed to Africa—and at time of publication was flying east over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
A dispatcher for Journey Aviation reached by phone said Journey did not comment on its charter flights and directed questions about the legality of removing any possible third-country nationals on board the aircraft to its charter client.
Both of the planes are leased by their respective charter companies from billionaires with ties to President Trump. The Journey plane that landed at Gitmo is owned by Michael and Gil Dezer, father-son developers who built Trump-branded condos with the president in the 2000s and have donated hundreds of thousands to Trump’s campaigns and PACs, as I first reported for Zeteo last October.
The Talon plane is owned by Jordache founder Joe Nakash and his real estate partner, Eli Gindi, who have also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump PACs, as I first reported for my newsletter in March.
Together, the two jets have made at least two dozen ICE removal stops since last October, according to my analysis of public flight data, including third-country removals to Africa.
