Haitian deportation flights

rockman2343@aol.com

rockman2343@aol.com

Well-Known Member

This is so inhumane and quite frankly it’s racist. How can we send these people back to a country where they are likely to face violence including rape and murder. A country where we have a travel warning. This administration allows white Afrikaners in, whom which it’s not quite clear that genocide is being committed against them, yet it wants to send brown women and children back to Haiti, and even Afghanistan.
We’re better than this as a country. We don’t say “there’s not enough resources for you here so you have to go back and face that.” The world loves us because we did the hard things, and we did them successfully. Ending slavery, equal rights for women, WWI and WWII, technological innovations that are second to none.
I willl never fly for an airline that does these deportation flights, I don’t care what they pay. If my airline were to start tomorrow, I’d leave. I hope most of you feel the same.
This is BS and I hope most of the country isn’t into this MAGA BS.
 
As someone that voted for Bush 2x, McCain, and Romney, I couldn’t agree more.

Like most of you old school JC folks, I’ve had to make some tough calls early in my career. This was when applicants were banging on the doors for basically minimum wage flying jets. Character does matter, and at some point we all have to make a tough call that could end up with you hitting the street looking for a new gig.

I hope that the resumes of pilots that enabled fascism, racism, and straight up anti-Constitutional actions via their pilot jobs are faced with the consequences for doing so.

I refused to fly a Piper Navajo early in my career when I knew it was mechanically unsafe, despite no union and no back up job (circa 2008, when pilot jobs were quite hard to come by). I did the same thing two years later during the Great Recession, when my chief pilot literally threatened me with his handful of other applicants.

So if anyone is willing to fly for ICE in 2026, when pilot jobs are much more plentiful and the mission of ICE/DHS is obviously unconstitutional and morally wrong, I sure do question your moral character.
 
Kingairer said:
I don't believe this is good career advice to quit an airline just because they flew a government charter.
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Maybe not. But that’s where I draw the line in my role as a citizen of this country. If we’re deporting these people to essentially a warzone it won’t be with my help.
Just to be clear, I have no problem deporting criminals, people who have had their due process, or people that came here illegally and won’t be in danger when we deport them back to their own country. But that’s not what is going on here.
 
rockman2343@aol.com said:
Maybe not. But that’s where I draw the line in my role as a citizen of this country. If we’re deporting these people to essentially a warzone it won’t be with my help.
Just to be clear, I have no problem deporting criminals, people who have had their due process, or people that came here illegally and won’t be in danger when we deport them back to their own country. But that’s not what is going on here.
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Yeah exactly this.

I’m fine with every that’s legal under the constitution. Nothing else.

Imagine having a problem with that? Yet there are people on this site that think it’s communism or something to be a constitutionalist. Wild times.
 
rockman2343@aol.com said:
Maybe not. But that’s where I draw the line in my role as a citizen of this country. If we’re deporting these people to essentially a warzone it won’t be with my help.
Just to be clear, I have no problem deporting criminals, people who have had their due process, or people that came here illegally and won’t be in danger when we deport them back to their own country. But that’s not what is going on here.
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Or came here through a legally sponsored program and the government moved the goal post on them before they could see their process through.
 
rockman2343@aol.com said:
Maybe not. But that’s where I draw the line in my role as a citizen of this country. If we’re deporting these people to essentially a warzone it won’t be with my help.
Just to be clear, I have no problem deporting criminals, people who have had their due process, or people that came here illegally and won’t be in danger when we deport them back to their own country. But that’s not what is going on here.
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This deserves to be in the lav as I feel it’s highly political, but from an aviation standpoint, “you” are just some FO on reserve who gets assigned the trip. You’re not some lawyer who is determining the legal status and righteousness of those onboard. If that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe look for new work but I wouldn’t just outright quit and risk a large unemployment gap if you’re wanting upward movement. Sure you maybe have an opportunity to explain it, but then you are potentially wading into political waters in the middle of a pilot interview.
 
This thread gives me some hope. It also very clearly illustrates the divide between pragmatists and idealists*, @///AMG. On one hand, you have people who are basically unwilling to take a moral or ethical stand because it might affect their career, and besides, some nebulous other person should do it anyway—it's not Joe Average's job to "do politics." On the other, you have people who are willing to stand up and risk what they've worked so hard for because they believe it's wrong.

(* - that's the word I meant rather than "idealogue." I'm on a four-day trip, and most of my remaining brain is on my impending book release. I want to dedicate more time to that discussion, but I can't yet. And the forum moves too fast for long, thought-out responses. Everything just tends to move quickly and cycle over and over again, as if there's no persistence of memory.)
 
NovemberEcho said:
Biden used title 42 pandemic related powers to deport Haitian immigrants detained at the border without due process or asylum hearings during covid. He also issued temporary protected status to Haitians already in the US. This TPS is what Trump revoked.
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Pilot Fighter said:
To be fair, considering Biden’s deportation of Haitians, Trump is playing catch-up.
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I understand using title 42 during COVID. We did not let them in the country due to COVID concerns, I get that.
He is talking about removing people that have been here years, many over a decade. People who have built new lives and contributed. That’s different than not allowing people in to prevent COVID. It’s cruel and inhumane.
As for playing catch up, Biden did not deport nearly as many as he’s trying to, and you know this. (To be clear I am not supporting Biden).
 
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GypsyPilot said:
But Kingairer thinks it might be a great career opportunity!
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www.dhs.gov

DHS Deports Criminal Illegal Aliens to Haiti Including Pedophiles, Carjackers, and Drug Traffickers | Homeland Security

DHS announced the successful completion of a July 16 deportation flight of over 100 illegal aliens to Haiti, including some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.
www.dhs.gov www.dhs.gov

I am not making not stance here politically, and if this is the hill people want to do die on that’s fine, I am just saying I place no blame on a flight crew who gets assigned a flight like this. They’re not attorneys reviewing each case of the people they are flying. I don’t recommend just quitting a job for this, but it’s “your life and your career”. It’s misplaced anger to target the airline.
 
sometimes I wonder how different the world would be if pilots withheld their services from billionaires
 
bp said:
sometimes I wonder how different the world would be if pilots withheld their services from billionaires
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Haha. Have you ever MET a pilot?! We are the same group that was willing to pay $10,000 for our own 135/121 training for the privilege of getting paid $13,000 a year to work for the company. The same group where a major airline required a 737 type rating just to apply for the job - and people went out and bought them! The same group where a $50,000 investment in a company called Kiwi International Airlines (literally a flightless bird) would buy you a job with the company. Or $20,000 for Gulfstream International bought you a few hundred hours as an FO. Or just the promise of a job with a nonexistent company called Legacy Airlines was enough for pilots to hand over copies of their license, medicals, and passports (days after 9/11) to some rando in the LaGuardia ticket lobby...

Pilots will literally do anything to fly airplanes for a living. The notion that corporate pilots will band together and withhold their services is laughable. There's always some young (or retired) pilot who is willing to do this job for less, just to get their fix. We have always been our own worst enemies.
 
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