Gov Maura Healey calls on private airlines to halt ICE flights after Minneapolis shooting

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Gov Maura Healey is calling on private airline companies to immediately stop providing charter flights for ICE, citing the fatal shooting of a woman during an operation in Minneapolis as evidence that the agency’s tactics have become unchecked.

In a letter sent to executives at GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express, Healey urged the companies to sever their contracts with ICE, arguing that private aviation firms should not be complicit in what she described as chaotic and harmful enforcement actions.

Governor links ICE operations to ‘chaotic, brutal’ tactics

Healey accused ICE of indiscriminately targeting people for removal while denying them due process, writing that detainees are being “severed from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel.”

She stressed that those affected are often long-standing members of their communities.

“They are hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community,” Healey wrote. “Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children.”

Pointing directly to the Minneapolis incident, she added, “As we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE’s tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly. This doesn’t make our communities safer, it makes us all less safe.”

Shooting fuels fight over ICE activities

The governor’s demand follows the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a resident who was shot by an ICE agent during an immigration operation on Wednesday.

Federal officials allege Good accelerated her vehicle toward an officer, a claim now at the center of intense public scrutiny and protests.

Healey also criticized the Trump administration’s reliance on private jets for deportation flights, arguing the practice is both costly and unjustified.

“On behalf of American taxpayers, I also find it incomprehensible that the Trump administration is choosing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private jets to obstruct people’s due process,” she wrote, particularly at a time when the administration is “denying hunger benefits, cutting health care access, and raising costs on everyone through costly tariffs.”

Massachusetts escalates pressure on ICE partners

Healey’s letter comes after she demanded that ICE stop operating flights out of Hanscom Field, a regional airport roughly 20 miles outside Boston.

Her administration has increasingly targeted the infrastructure supporting federal immigration enforcement rather than ICE alone.

She pointed to recent action by another carrier as proof that withdrawal is possible, telling the companies, “One of your peer companies recently cut ties with ICE. It’s time for you to do the same.”

Avelo Airlines, which previously chartered ICE flights in Massachusetts, announced earlier this year that it had ended its relationship with the federal agency.