ICE detainee transfer flights through Utah reached a monthly high in September

September was Utah's busiest month for immigration detainee transfer flights since they began passing through the state in March 2025, with 19 flights through Salt Lake City and nine through St. George, according to internal data from Human Rights First's ICE Flight Monitor, KUER reported. ^[1]

The monitor calls them shuffle flights: unlike deportation flights, they move detainees between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers and jails. Fetaine Seddighzadeh, a reporting and monitoring analyst with the monitor, said at least 50 cities have joined the domestic network during President Donald Trump's second term, including Salt Lake City, St. George and Cedar City. Cedar City has had one flight since tracking began in 2020. ^[1]

Through September, the top destinations for Salt Lake City flights this year were El Paso, Texas, and Bakersfield and Victorville, California, while St. George flights mostly went to Twin Falls, Idaho, and the planes often continue to other stops. ^[1]

KUER described one September flight from Salt Lake City through the account of Dennys Alcivar of Ecuador, who was held at the Weber County Jail after his arrest in Ogden. He said he was chained for the flight and taken to California City, where he filed a habeas petition and a judge ordered his release after more than a month in detention. ICE policy is to restrain detainees with handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons on flights, and Seddighzadeh said moving people farther from their families and lawyers adds barriers for those in the system. ^[1]