Anti-ICE activists demand end to shackles on WA deportation flights despite documented attacks on federal officers | The Post Millennial– thepostmillennial.com

Anti-ICE activists in Washington state are demanding federal officials stop using ankle shackles on detainees transported aboard Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights, despite documented cases of detainees attacking federal officers during deportation operations, including one deportee who became violent aboard an aircraft while already restrained.

Approximately two dozen protesters marched Tuesday to a Federal Aviation Administration office in Des Moines, Washington, and attempted to deliver a petition with more than 950 signatures calling for an end to shackling detainees aboard ICE flights operating out of King County International Airport, commonly known as Boeing Field.

Video from a publicly available livestream showed detainees boarding an aircraft with restraints around their ankles and their wrists restrained near their waists. “We want them to enforce their regulations, their existing regulations in the federal code, that the FAA is supposed to enforce, that say people in chains are not safe on flights,” protester Justina Brown told KING 5. The protesters cited 49 CFR § 1544.221, a federal aviation security regulation governing prisoners traveling under the escort of armed law enforcement officers. One provision states that prisoners covered by the regulation must have their hands restrained while also requiring that “leg irons are not used.”