Patriots Team Plane Makes Trip To Guantánamo Bay | EUROtoday

Flight data Monday indicated {that a} New England Patriots workforce aircraft made a visit to and from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the notorious U.S. army base that’s now getting used as a detention middle for deportees and another immigrants the Trump administration shuttled overseas and to a infamous Salvadoran jail.

Two planes owned by the workforce can be found for constitution, and Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft has additionally used them for private initiatives like help missions. But it’s not clear what led to the Guantánamo Bay journey. A spokesperson for Kraft’s firm instructed HuffPost that “there were no detainees on the plane,” however that the Patriots present constitution operator does work with the Department of Defense to move army personnel and others for “no financial gain.”

The Trump administration has used Guantánamo Bay to detain deportees from the United States, and in addition as a waypoint for some of the immigrants despatched — with out due course of, felony fees or different authorized protections — to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison.

Charter flights are a key a part of the administration’s “mass deportation” equipment, and ProPublica just lately reported on flight attendants for the constitution firm Global Crossing Airlines, used to “rock bands, sports teams and sun-seekers,” who’ve discovered themselves as an alternative working deportation flights. Charter flights have been used for immigration enforcement by earlier administrations as properly.

The Patriots aircraft’s Guantánamo journey was flagged Monday by customers on the social media web site Bluesky, together with the automated account GTMO Watch and the person JJ in DC. The Boston-based group information web site UniversalHub additionally flagged the flights.

Flight data point out that one of many two Patriots planes — each of which have Patriots imagery and workforce colours painted across the exterior of the aircraft — took off from Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas round 6 a.m. native time, and arrived at Guantánamo Bay a number of hours later.

It spent 4 hours on the bottom on the American army outpost in Cuba, then arrived on the Biggs Army Airfield on the Fort Bliss army base in El Paso after a five-hour return flight, the data indicated.

In an announcement to HuffPost, a spokesperson for Kraft Sports + Entertainment, the Patriots’ mother or father firm, acknowledged that its present constitution firm supervisor does use the Patriots aircraft “when chartering to the Department of Defense to move military personnel as well as other government agencies with no financial gain to the organization.”

The spokesperson, Anisha Chakrabarti, didn’t reply to extra detailed follow-up questions, although she denied that the aircraft had been used to move detainees beneath its present constitution supervisor.

“The New England Patriots plane was not used for any kind of deportation flight and there were no detainees on the plane,” Chakrabarti wrote in an e-mail. “Under our current charter manager, neither of the Patriots planes have ever been used for that purpose.”

“The team planes are operated by a professional charter company when they are not in use by the team,” Chakrabarti’s assertion continued. “This company manages all logistics, bookings, and operations independently. The New England Patriots organization is not involved in, nor does it approve, sanction, or coordinate the uses of the aircrafts when they are chartered for non-team purposes. The charter company uses the Patriots planes as part of their inventory when chartering to the Department of Defense to move military personnel as well as other government agencies with no financial gain to the organization.”

Questions despatched to varied Trump administration companies weren’t instantly returned.

Last yr, the Patriots entered a long-term settlement with Omni Air International, a subsidiary of Air Transport Services Group, to deal with two Boeing 767-300 passenger plane for workforce journey and different chartered flights — together with “humanitarian and goodwill flights on behalf of the Kraft family, and as available for Omni’s other charter customers,” in response to a press launch.

Kym Parks, director of selling at Air Transport Services Group, referred HuffPost to the remark “from the aircraft owners,” however declined to reply particular questions.

“Due to the potential nature of our missions, we do not confirm any flight or contract information,” Parks stated.

Previous reporting from The Intercept and Quartz detailed Omni Air International’s work with the U.S. authorities, together with deportation flights. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights has revealed intensive analysis on the federal government’s use of constitution flights for deportations, and has written about monitoring Omni-operated planes that seem to have been used for each deportation flights and sports activities groups.

Prior to the Omni Air settlement, the Patriots coordinated workforce and constitution flights by way of one other firm, Eastern Airlines, although the events had been concerned in a authorized dispute in 2023.

Robert Kraft, whose Kraft Group LLC was a one-time $1 million donor to Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, stated final October that he was “very upset” by the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, and that he hadn’t spoken to Trump since.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Kraft had reached out to Trump on behalf of Brad Karp, the chairman of the legislation agency Paul Weiss — which in the end struck a cope with Trump to change company coverage modifications and professional bono work to keep away from being focused by the administration. The deal is a part of a sequence of Trump assaults on legislation corporations, wherein he’s pressured them for political concessions in what Democratic legislators have known as “an illegal shakedown of the legal profession.”

Kraft is a longtime consumer of Paul Weiss, the Journal reported. Kraft’s son, Josh Kraft, is at present working a marketing campaign to unseat incumbent Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

In 2022, a Patriots workforce aircraft was reportedly used for a number of deportation flights to Honduras.

Separately, Kraft and the Patriots group have publicly acknowledged utilizing the planes for particular functions like flying masks into Boston on the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering help to Haiti, and flying college taking pictures survivors and family members of taking pictures casualties to the 2018 “March for Our Lives” rally.