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Rights Groups Slam Amazon for Buying into Deportation Airline Accused of Torture

HeadlineFeb 25, 2022

Immigrant justice advocates are demanding Amazon divest from an air cargo holding company whose subsidiaries include Omni Air International, which carries out deportation flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as the ”ICE Air” program. The Intercept reports Amazon purchased a percentage of Air Transport Services Group, the company that owns Omni Air, for some $131 million last year. Activists have long exposed abuse faced by asylum seekers on Omni Air deportation flights. In 2017, deported asylum seekers returned to Somalia in an Omni Air flight were reportedly beaten and restrained with straitjackets. In another incident in 2012, a Salvadoran asylum seeker “miscarried her triplets” aboard a removal flight to El Salvador.

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