No, ICE deportation flights are not dropping people in the ocean

Immigration advocates have criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement for detaining people suspected of being in the country illegally at workplaces, court hearings and traffic stops. 

According to some social media users, ICE removal tactics also include flying immigrants on planes and dropping them in the ocean. 

"People tracking the ICE deportation flights have found some of them are just flying to the middle of the ocean and turning around and coming right back. Also, bodies are washing up on the shores of Spain, cuffed and shackled," a woman says in a July 1 TikTok post. "You know, the way we saw them getting onto those planes? Also Sudan launched an investigation because a planeload of their people never arrived, and they're still unaccounted for. It's been about a month."

Another TikTok user tapped PolitiFact to help fact-check the story in the comments.

PolitiFact asked ICE about the social media claim and did not hear back.

Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks ICE deportation flights including removal, return and domestic flights, released a July 5 report tracking ICE flights from June 2024 to June 2025. (ICE Air is the primary division that facilitates the transfer and removal of immigrants via commercial airlines and chartered flights.)

In June 2025, the report said, there were 209 ICE Air removal flights. That number is the highest level since Thomas Cartwright, the report’s author and immigrant advocate, started recording flights in January 2020.

However, his most recent report does not mention any discrepancies, such as flying to the middle of the ocean and turning back. 

"These videos have no basis in fact," Cartwright told PolitiFact by email. "I have tracked over 40,000 ICE Air flights over 5 1/2 years and never have I seen anything that would even in a remote way support any of these spurious claims."

Immigration experts previously told PolitiFact it is common for immigration officials to chain or handcuff immigrants who are being removed from the country, including within the U.S. But we have found no news reports about people tracking immigration flights that are turning around after leaving people in the middle of the ocean. We also found no reports of Sudan investigating a planeload that "never arrived".

APBS News reported that the U.S. deported eight men from various countries to South Sudan on July 5, after the U.S. Supreme Court approved the transfer.

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The TikTok narrator also said that "bodies are washing up on the shores of Spain, cuffed and shackled."

Spanish authorities found at least five bodies washed to shore with their hands and feet tied in late June, according to CBS News. But there was no reported connection to the U.S. or ICE.

Police suspect they were migrants from North Africa who may have been tied up and thrown into the sea after disputes with their smugglers.

In June, CBS News reported that hundreds of people attempt migrating to Spain by crossing from North Africa to the Balearic archipelago off eastern Spain in the Mediterranean. A Majorca, Spain, newspaper, the Majorca Daily Bulletin, reported that authorities found 31 bodies in the waters and beaches of the archipelago from January to June.

We found no evidence that people tracking ICE deportation flights reported that ICE is throwing people into the middle of the ocean. We rate those claims Pants on Fire!

CORRECTION, July 23, 2025: This fact-check was updated to correct the number of ICE Air removal flights in June 2025.