King County loses battle to stop ICE deportation flights at Boeing Field
SEATTLE - King County's attempt to block the federal government from using Boeing Field for deportation flights was shot down in an appellate court last week.
In 2019, King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order preventing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from using Boeing Field for deportation flights. The county argues that such operations "could lead to human rights abuses and violations" and "raise deeply troubling human rights concerns which are inconsistent with the values of King County, including separations of families, increases of racial disproportionality in policing, [and] deportations of people into unsafe situations in other countries."
The Trump administration, in turn, sued King County in 2020 for violating the federal government's Supremacy Clause, and for violating a 1940s act which returned Boeing Field from U.S. ownership to King County ownership after World War II, which came with various stipulations including an "Instrument of Transfer."
The lawsuit continued under the Biden administration, and on Nov. 29, the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the federal government.
"The United States’ inability to conduct the charter flights—which has increased ICE’s operational costs—constituted a de facto injury that affected the United States in a particularized, individual way," reads an opinion from Trump-appointed circuit judge Daniel Bress. "The United States also faced an imminent risk of future injury from the Executive Order."
According to the court, the county's executive order "discriminated against the United States" and "improperly regulated" the federal government's use of private contractors at Boeing Field.
The county had acted on the executive order in the last six years, but Bress writes that fixed base operators (FBOs) like Modern Aviation "fell in line" with the county's wishes to avoid possibly being put out of business, causing financial and logistical injury to the federal government's deportation efforts, which President-elect Trump has said will be a priority of his administration.
"While King County and its leaders are entitled to hold [the] view [that deportations raise human rights concerns], the obvious policy and regulatory basis for the Executive Order prevents King County from invoking the [executive order] against the federal government," wrote Bress.
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