Ireland: Stop Unlawful ICE Removal Flights through Shannon Airport

Today Amnesty International Ireland and Human Rights First published their joint letter to the Ministers for Transport and Foreign Affairs and Trade urging an end to the U.S. administration’s use of Shannon Airport as a refuelling stopover for unlawful removal flights by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  The organizations called on the Irish Government to refuse to facilitate in any way the Trump administration’s violations of international law, and for reparations to be made to the individuals forcibly removed.

According to data gathered by ICE Flight Monitor, based at Human Rights First, U.S. flights, using leased civilian aircrafts, passed through Shannon Airport to conduct five separate ICE removal operations between May 2025 and February 2026. These operations took people to South Sudan, Eswatini, Rwanda and Israel, and have included third country removals where individuals are forcibly taken to countries where they have no connection.

“People across Ireland and the world look on in horror as the Trump administration continues implementing its vile, racist and xenophobic executive orders that dehumanize and criminalize people who are, or are perceived to be, migrants and refugees. The administration has brazenly violated the right to due process by unlawfully removing people and subjecting some to enforced disappearance,” said Stephen Bowen, Executive Director, Amnesty International Ireland. “The Irish Government decides how its sovereign airspace and territory is used by other states. It must play no role whatsoever in the United States’ inhuman, cruel and extreme mass immigration detention and removal machine.”

“To carry out its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration is flouting international law and cutting deals with dictators. It is also endangering lives, through its opaque web of third country agreements to send people against their will to countries where they have no connection,” said Uzra Zeya, President and CEO of Human Rights First. “Beyond their cruelty, these agreements reflect a transactional foreign policy driven by xenophobia, and they undermine due process and human rights globally. Ireland should play no part in facilitating these unlawful removals, including to third countries notorious for rights abuses.”

On 12 March, Amnesty International and Human Rights First wrote to the two Ministers with details of five flights on which at least 28 individuals were unlawfully removed. These included forced removals of individuals to countries, such as South Sudan and Eswatini, to which they have no ties and where they are facing arbitrary and prolonged detention and other abuses.

In the letter, Amnesty International and Human Rights First sought important information on measures taken by the Irish Government. To date, there has been no response to the letter.

In the meantime, the U.S. administration has used Shannon Airport again to refuel two aircrafts that landed at Poland’s Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport on 17 March 2026. Amnesty International and Human Rights First believe that both flights carried a number of Ukrainian nationals, who were likely then taken by land to the Polish-Ukrainian border and forcibly transferred to Ukraine. Conditions in Ukraine are not safe for returns, and the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, continues to call on states not to forcibly return people to Ukraine.

According to reporting, Ireland’s Department of Transport has said private aircraft do not require permission to refuel at Shannon, even if contracted by the U.S. Government. However, while civil aircraft do not require state permission to land for refueling under the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, all states are required to interpret the Convention’s provisions in a manner that complies with international human rights law.

“The Department of Transport’s public responses are just not good enough. There are depressing parallels with Ireland’s failure two decades ago to stop CIA-leased civil aircraft using Shannon as a stopover for rendition operations during the U.S. ‘war on terror’. Despite promises to ‘enforce the prohibition on the use of Irish airspace, airports and related facilities for purposes not in line with the dictates of international law’, it appears that no concrete actions were ever taken,” Stephen Bowen said.

Amnesty International and Human Rights First are calling on the Irish government to stand for human rights, justice, and the dignity of all people.  The government must take all necessary measures to prevent any further use of Irish airspace, airport and related facilities by the U.S. for unlawful third country removals. It must call on the U.S. – and countries that are the final destination of U.S. flights – to release all individuals who have been removed and placed in arbitrary detention, and ensure they are protected from refoulement, treated with dignity, and provided with an effective remedy. Finally, it should offer those individuals safe passage and relocation to Ireland.

“The Government’s timidity in its dealings with President Trump is already a cause for concern. If Ireland is facilitating the monstrous ICE project, then we fear the Government has lost its way. Rather than cower and capitulate, it must show courage, compassion and principle,” Stephen Bowen said.

Note to editors

ICE Flight Monitor is a data-driven initiative that systematically tracks and documents U.S. immigration enforcement flights based at Human Rights First  – see ICE Flight Monitor – Human Rights First. Human Rights First is a U.S.-based, non-partisan non-profit, organisation that advocates for human rights globally and for U.S. compliance with its domestic and international human rights commitments.