More on Omni’s ICE Flights

This is a supplement to my new story in Mother Jones about Omni Air International and the private equity firm profiting off some of ICE’s cruelest deportation flights. If you haven’t read it yet, it is here.

Omni’s January ICE Flight Record

My Mother Jones story analyzed flight data between mid-April 2025, when Stonepeak purchased Omni, and the end of the calendar year. But Omni’s ICE flights continue. So far in January, it has operated a record number of ICE trips, including:

• The transfer deportation of Russians via Egypt and Iranians via Kuwait
• The third-country removal of nine migrants to Cameroon
• The third-country removal of 20 migrants to Equatorial Guinea
• The possible third-country removals of migrants to Ghana and Liberia
• At least six trips in which migrants were shackled for more than 24 hours.

As I write this, an Omni aircraft is descending for landing in Bogotá, likely for an ICE removal; another appears to be staging at ICE Air’s hub in Alexandria, La.

Melissa Tran

While the article focused on Omni and its private equity owner, many of you have been moved by Melissa Tran’s description of her four-day deportation ordeal, and I wanted to provide more information on her case and how you can help her and her family.

Tran is staying with a distant relative in southern Vietnam. She is safe for now, but she fears the government harassment her family fled decades ago could start again at anytime. She continues to miss her kids, aged 7 to 20, deeply. Christmas was really hard. She told me yesterday she is doing “okay, though some days are better than others.” You can contribute to a GoFundMe to help Tran’s family with legal fees and travel expenses so her kids can visit her here.

It is unclear when, or if, she may be able to return to her home in Hagerstown, Md. She may be banned from entry to the United States for life.

The Baltimore Banner has covered Tran’s story really well, but I want to highlight an undercovered aspect of her case that may help explain the huge increase in deportations to Vietnam, Laos and other countries recently. Tran’s green card was revoked after her 2001 theft conviction (which her lawyer did not warn her could happen, she told me, and may have affected her decision to plead guilty had she known). However, she couldn’t be deported because, for many years, Vietnam had refused to issue travel documents for people who left before 1995.

That all changed last fall. Vietnam, Laos, and other countries now appear to be issuing travel documents for just about anyone ICE wants. Proof is hard to come by as to why, but immigration attorneys believe there are two factors pushing this change: 1) the tariffs, which the Trump administration may be promising to lower in exchange for travel documents, and 2) Trump’s third-country removals of immigrants to African prisons. Authoritarian as many of these governments may be, they may now fear that if they don’t issue travel documents for longtime expats, then those people will end up in a foreign gulag.

Vinnie Thongthiou

That appears to be what happened with Vinnie Thongthiou, the Laotian man who told me he was shackled for 73 hours when he was deported on Omni in October. Thongthiou was on the military plane that was supposed to expel migrants to Libya in May, before a judge’s emergency order blocked it. Soon, other Laotian nationals were sent to prisons in South Sudan and Eswatini, where they are still imprisoned. That apparently was enough to convince Laos to start issuing traveling documents; ICE flights have landed in Laos at least five times since September.

Unlike Tran, Thongthiou said he and the other migrant passengers on his Omni flight were not allowed to stand or stretch. If anyone tried to stand, guards would bark at them to “Sit the fuck down.” Grown men were crying out from the pain caused by their confinement, he said. Thongthiou described going into a sort of survival mode, his whole world narrowing to how to get through the next minute, then the next, then the next.

Since his arrival in Laos, Thongthiou’s transition has been going better than Tran’s. The government there has set up what he described as a “refugee camp” for all the new arrivals from the U.S., where they’re treated well, he said. They can come and go as they please and receive help finding relatives and getting on their feet. Thongthiou’s family fled Laos five decades ago when he was a small child, but the day he arrived, he said, officers at the camp told him, “We love you, and we welcome you home.”

His former attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, is part of a new mutual aid group, the Ba Lô Project, to help Vietnamese returnees with their transition and “ensure that our deported siblings are not forgotten.” You can learn more about the group and donate here.

Stonepeak’s Investors

The source who provided me with the Pitchbook list of Stonepeak’s investors did so on the condition that I not reveal the whole list or how many investors are on the list. In order to keep this commitment and provide the most helpful information, I am naming only the public funds in blue/swing states, where it is more likely voters and public-employee pension members will want to pressure state officials and fund administrators to reconsider their Stonepeak investments. Many of these funds have ESG policies that the human rights abuses on Omni’s ICE flights may violate.

California: California Public Employees’ Retirement System, California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Regents of the University of California Retirement Plan, Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System, San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System, Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement System

Connecticut: Connecticut State Employees’ Retirement System

Illinois: Illinois State Board of Investment, Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois

Maine: Maine Public Employees Retirement System

Maryland: Maryland State Retirement and Pension System

Massachusetts: City of Quincy Retirement System, Massachusetts Laborers’ Annuity Fund, Massachusetts Laborers’ Pension Fund

Michigan: Michigan Department of Treasury, State of Michigan Retirement Systems

Minnesota: Minnesota Laborers Pension Fund

New Jersey: New Jersey Pension Plan, New Jersey Division of Investment

New Mexico: New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, New Mexico Public Employees’ Retirement Association

New York: New York City Board of Education Retirement System, New York City Employees’ Retirement System, New York City Police Pension Fund, New York City Fire Department Pension Fund, New York State Common Retirement Fund, New York State Teamsters Conference Pension & Retirement Fund, Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York

Oregon: Oregon Investment Council, Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, Oregon State Treasury

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System

Rhode Island: Employees Retirement System of Rhode Island

Virginia: Fairfax County Educational Employees Supplementary Pension, Virginia Retirement System

Washington: Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System, Washington State Investment Board

It is unlikely any of the fund administrators were aware of Stonepeak’s involvement in ICE flights. The funds’ investments with Stonepeak are likely a small fraction of the total size of the fund.

Please let me know if you contact any of these funds and what they say. I would love to keep track of and report on any community pushes to divest. You can email me at gbrockell at proton dot me.

Thank you again for reading. As I wrote earlier this week, I will be focusing on publishing my ICE Air reporting here going forward. Please consider subscribing, paying for a subscription, or sending me a one-time tip, so I can continue tracking ICE Air.

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