All Eyes on Hanscom!

IMC-CAN Team Weekly Action August 6, 2026

The De-ICE Hanscom Coalition is calling on activists to send postcards or letters to Massport and Governor Healey demanding publicly viewable webcams at Hanscom Field, New England’s principal transfer point for ICE detention flights. Cameras could help attorneys determine whether clients have been placed on flights, help families locate loved ones, and bring transparency to transfers that now occur largely out of public view. Download a postcard design and suggested messages, then tell Massachusetts officials: ICE flights at Hanscom must not remain hidden.

De-ICE Hanscom Coalition

The De-ICE Hanscom Coalition is asking activists to write letters or send postcards to the Massport Authorities and Governor Healey, calling for the installation of webcams at Hanscom Field (See Background Information for more details).

Use the link below for images that can be downloaded and printed at home for DIY postcards, as well as suggested scripts/text for messages to send to Massport and Governor Healey.

Link to Action: Postcards for the De-ICE Hanscom Webcam Campaign

Letters/postcards can be sent to:

Board of Directors

Mass Port Authority

One Harborside Drive, Suite 200S

East Boston, MA 02128

Example Message: ICE is violating due process rights at Hanscom! Install a camera system so that people can be identified before they are flown out-of-state.

Office of the Governor

State House, Room 280

Boston, MA 02133

Link to email the Governor’s Office

The De-ICE Hanscom Coalition is trying to stop Hanscom Field from serving as New England’s principal transfer point for ICE detention flights. Its work is broader than holding protests. It combines public demonstrations, flight monitoring, legal research, political pressure, and corporate campaigning.

The coalition has held peaceful demonstrations at the Hanscom Rotary since October 2025. The current schedule is Fridays, 1:00–2:30 p.m., at Hanscom Drive and Old Bedford Road in Lincoln. Participants watch ICE vans and buses enter the airport, display signs, speak about detainees’ experiences, and maintain public attention on flights that otherwise occur largely out of view.

Coalition volunteers use flight data and direct observation of planes, vans, buses, and support vehicles. They are involved with Habeas Flight Watch, a system developed to predict and document ICE flights so that attorneys, families, journalists, and activists may learn when detained people are being moved.

As of July 31, the coalition said its verifiers had documented 114 ICE flights from Hanscom since October 7, 2025, estimating that between 2,221 and 4,310 people had been transported. Those passenger figures are coalition estimates based partly on observed vehicles, not official Massport or ICE counts. Many of these people have no criminal record and have had no bond hearing or access to legal counsel.

Massport owns and operates Hanscom Field, so it is one of the campaign’s central institutional targets. The Coalition and its partner organizations have organized repeated letter, email, petition, and postcard campaigns directed at Massport executives, its seven-member board, and Governor Healey. An earlier campaign generated more than 1,740 communications. Subsequent rounds have pushed the total above 2,000.

The Coalition’s newest major campaign asks Massport to install livestream cameras showing the portions of Hanscom where ICE passengers are boarded. Cameras could help lawyers and families determine whether a particular person has been placed on a flight. The Coalition also calls for neutral legal observers, review of passenger manifests, and positioning planes and boarding ramps so that boarding is visible.

Following a Coalition presentation, the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission (HFAC) introduced a motion requesting cameras. A formal vote was postponed until its August 2026 meeting. The Advisory Commission is a regional public advisory body that serves as a liaison between Massport and the communities surrounding Hanscom: Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln. Although the Commission does not have regulatory authority over ICE flights, the Commission can make a formal request of the Massport Board.

The Coalition argues that Massport can restrict the large ICE charter aircraft by enforcing an existing Hanscom regulation, 740 CMR 25.03, that generally prohibits commercial passenger aircraft with seating capacity above 60 seats. Organizers contend that the rule predates federal airport-noise preemption and is therefore grandfathered. Massport has taken the position that federal law limits its ability to exclude the flights. The Coalition disputes that conclusion.

The Coalition has also supported pressure on Signature Aviation, the fixed-base operator reportedly providing fueling or ground services for ICE charter flights at Hanscom and elsewhere. The De-ICE Hanscom Coalition and the nationwide Ground ICE Campaign are asking Signature to refuse that business and urging Massachusetts pension officials and investment managers to use their shareholder influence. Governor Healey has called on Signature Aviation to stop supporting the flights.

The Coalition is asking Massport to install a publicly viewable webcam system so that lawyers can identify their clients and families can locate their loved ones. A similar system has successfully monitored ICE flights at King County Airport in Seattle since 2023, providing a strong precedent for this request.

Massport is the common name for the Massachusetts Port Authority. It is a state-created, quasi-public authority that owns and operates major transportation facilities, including:

• Boston Logan International Airport

• Worcester Regional Airport

• L.G. Hanscom Field

• Conley Container Terminal

• Flynn Cruiseport Boston and other Port of Boston properties

Massport is not an ordinary state agency or private company. It is a public instrumentality of Massachusetts with its own governing board, authority to charge fees, enter contracts, acquire property, and issue revenue bonds. It is largely self-financing through airport, parking, rent, shipping, cruise, and concession revenues rather than annual state appropriations.

ICE AIR: Inside America’s Secret Deportation Network, a documentary film that exposes a multi-million-dollar domestic flight system run by ICE, July 2026

Prisons in the sky: Human trafficking at Hanscom airport fueled by complicity with ICE, Bearing Witness @ ICE, 8/2/26

Ground ICE Campaign

Have a good idea for the CAN? You can suggest action items! Each week, the IMC-CAN Team receives suggested actions from a wide range of activists through its CAN Team Action Submission Form.