GlobalX, a new charter airline based in Miami, has gone through quite an unexpected metamorphosis. More recently, it has won a major role in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights. For example, in 2024 and 2025, GlobalX will be responsible for more than half of these flights. The company has gone from serving the likes of sports teams and rock bands looking for luxury travel to being the go-to contractor for ICE. This transition has raised questions about the ethical implications of its operations and the impact on the individuals being deported.
The airline just recently secured a contract with ICE to carry out deportation flights both out of and into the United States. This change created a profound seismic shift to its revenue base. To do that, GlobalX started by targeting celebrities and athletes as early customers. Today, it produces the majority of its revenue thanks to its contract with ICE. This move marks an important continuation of a rising tide. Private companies are becoming more involved in government agencies’ controversial roles in immigration enforcement through these collaborative efforts.
In May 2025, The Guardian was provided with a trove of anonymous GlobalX leaks. These leaks revealed highly sensitive information such as passenger names, personally identifiable information, flight numbers, and other pertinent information regarding deportation flights. The leak coincided with a pretty large-scale cybersecurity incident. GlobalX was able to rapidly validate this problem, uncovering vulnerabilities in the airline’s data collection infrastructure.
The Scale of Deportation Operations
In the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, between January and May of 2017, GlobalX operated 272 deportation flights. This was the time of the largest ramp-up in enforcement actions— immigration enforcement, that is— by the new administration.
Our own analysis of flight data indicates that GlobalX moved close to 1,000 children. This featured nearly 500 children under 10 and 22 babies. The impacts of moving these vulnerable populations have raised fears among advocates and humanitarian organizations.
“Families are being put into a purgatorial state,” – Al-Juburi
One of the worst incidents they documented was a deportation flight to Brazil in which several passengers lost consciousness due to heat exhaustion. These events should concern all of us about how the deported are treated. They call out airlines such as GlobalX for their role in preventing inhumane treatment while in transport.
In 2024 Giants, 6016979926, pocit — chartered flights GlobalX between U.S. cities soared to double the number in the last month’s record. The airline’s recent increase in activity is a reflection of its growing role in the deportation machine. That change has real impact on immigrant communities around the country.
Leaked Data and Its Consequences
GlobalX’s data leak exposed information related to more than 1,700 flights, including passenger manifests. This new data, covering more than 44,000 people, provides an unprecedented look behind the scenes at how the deportation machine works. This data spelled out the individual case details and offered a view into the daily case load across numerous detention centers. It looked at how frequently detainees were moved from one center to another.
The breach was verified by GlobalX in a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 5, 2025. The parent company notified customers that the breach took place between May 3 and May 4. This chronology is consistent with the metadata found in the files we leaked. These incidents highlight the importance of having strong cybersecurity measures in place when dealing with sensitive information collected and shared for immigration enforcement purposes.
“We have an entire team that is just looking every single day to try to locate people, so then we can communicate with them, offer them representation, and try and get them help,” – Toczylowski
The implications of this data leak go farther than privacy violations though it shines a light on the lack of transparency within ICE’s operations. Advocates say that the state of affairs frequently leaves families in a state of uncertainty. They contend with tremendous uncertainty about their future, all while having to navigate a complicated and often inscrutable legal process.
Ethical Implications and Responses
GlobalX has been pouring fuel on ICE’s deportation flights. This should raise grave ethical questions about how detainees are treated when they are transported. Advocates say the system is intentionally designed to daunt immigrants in body and spirit, effectively forcing them to self-deport.
“The system is designed to make you, as an immigrant, give up, to make you more likely to self-deport,” – Al-Juburi
Al-Juburi further emphasizes that the continuous transfers of detainees create a state of uncertainty:
“You end up in a continuous state of unknown for an indefinite period of time.”
These statements echo larger worries about the ways in which immigration enforcement policies disrupt mental health and stability within families.
Tricia McLaughlin responded to the pushback on ICE’s detaining practices. She stressed that there’s no such thing as a free transfer. She strongly rebutted allegations that these transfers were being ‘weaponized’ or ‘hidden’. She iterated that DHS has been operating around the clock to transport people held in detention centers to their eventual destinations.
“Despite a historic number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination – home,” – Tricia McLaughlin
Advocates like Shebaya argue that there are gaps in accountability and transparency within the system:
“It really is very strange, you get someone who’s picked up, they go to a hold cell, they stay there for seven days – which is completely outrageous… It’s like this wild goose chase, trying to follow where the person is and what the reasons are even for moving them.” – Shebaya