Episode 51: Private Equity Playbook - Deportation Flights and Omni Air International
Detaining and deporting immigrants has become a lucrative business, and private equity is financing the infrastructure behind it. In this Art of Citizenry episode of the Private Equity Playbook, Manpreet Kaur Kalra and Anna Canning follow the money behind Omni Air International, a charter airline operating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights, and Stonepeak, the private equity firm that owns it.
Omni occupies a particularly troubling corner of the deportation industry specializing in long-haul, “high risk” flights. University of Washington researchers have documented allegations of gross human rights violations on Omni flights, including torture, prolonged restraint, violations of due process, and the return of migrants to places where they may face serious harm. The very same aircraft have also been rapidly reconfigured to carry celebrities and professional athletes in premium comfort. In true Art of Citizenry fashion, we trace Stonepeak’s acquisition of Omni Air, how public pension funds financed the deal, and why voluntary ESG commitments can fall apart when there are no meaningful mechanisms for accountability.
Omni Air reveals a deeper issue with government contracting: outsourcing, layers of contracts, and corporate ownership make state violence increasingly difficult to trace. ICE contracts with brokers, who subcontract airlines, which sit inside corporate conglomerates. And then, when these conglomerates are acquired by private equity funds, those funds are often significantly funded by pension funds of teachers and public employees. Every step obscures accountability while each party only claims to be looking out for its own best interests. But what about the essential human rights of those who get caught in ICE’s rapidly expanding net?
We explore:
How Omni Air became part of the U.S. deportation infrastructure, including its role in unlawful ICE removals. Long before Stonepeak acquired its parent company, Omni operated military charters and long-range ICE flights.
The economics of “high-risk” deportation flights and the human rights abuses linked to deportation flights, including prolonged restraint, torture, denial of due process, and violations of the principle of non-refoulement (learn more in the episode).
Stonepeak’s acquisition of Omni Air’s parent company and how much private equity can profit from privatizing government functions (including our waterways!).
The contradiction inside public pension investing. On one hand, public pension funds across California, New York, Oregon, and Washington (to name a few) helped finance the Stonepeak fund behind the deal, but on the other hand these states have taken significant action to protect immigrant communities. The disconnect between public commitments and pension investments reveals many questions: Do teachers and other state employees know what their retirement money is financing? Are the mechanisms that exist adequate for accountability?
Why layers of contractors, corporate ownership, private equity funds, and voluntary ESG commitments can obscure accountability even when the underlying harm is well documented. We ask: does identifying ESG-related risks necessarily mean identifying and preventing harm to people (spoiler alert: no!)?
Tune in as we examine the various ways state violence gets obscured by layers of contracts and ask a larger question: when governments outsource state power, who is ultimately responsible for the harm?
“Privatization does not make state power disappear. It just makes that power harder to see.”
—Manpreet Kaur Kalra
🚨 Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of immigration detention and deportation, torture, physical restraint, solitary confinement, self-harm, and other forms of physical and psychological mistreatment. Please listen with care.
What is Omni Air, and what role does it play in ICE deportation flights?
Omni Air International is a charter airline that operates passenger flights for government, military, sports teams, and other clients. It also subcontracts with the U.S. government to operate deportation flights for ICE, often using the same planes. Omni Air is known for their long-haul flights, particularly ones most likely to incur gross human rights violations that most other carriers have been unwilling to service due to possible reputational risks.
“In a world of human rights abuses and violations of international law, Omni made a name for itself as the company willing to do the most.”
—Anna Canning
Who owns Omni Air?
Omni Air is owned by Air Transport Services Group, or ATSG. Private equity firm Stonepeak acquired ATSG in 2025 in a deal valued at approximately $3.1 billion, taking the company private and placing Omni Air within Stonepeak’s broader portfolio of transportation and infrastructure investments. In the months that followed, Omni’s ICE work increased dramatically, including long international flights and third-country removals.
“When we say that private equity is financializing everything and turning it all into profits, Stonepeak underscores that it’s really everything, right down to the environment around us.”
—Anna Canning
How are public pension funds connected to Omni Air and Stonepeak?
The fund used to invest in ATSG by Snowpeak included money from pension funds across the country, particularly California, Washington, and Oregon. Public pension systems invest retirement savings on behalf of teachers, state employees, and other public workers, including through private equity funds with pension beneficiaries often having little visibility into those underlying investments. This episode follows the thread connecting private equity, public retirement money, and the deportation infrastructure in our attempt to create more transparency and help inform the citizenry!
“So, here you have all these progressive West Coast states with strong commitments on paper to immigrant and human rights - and yet in every case, their state employees’ pension funds are being used in ways that go against those very commitments.”
—Manpreet Kaur Kalra
How does privatization obscure accountability for state violence?
One of the recurring themes of the Private Equity Playbook is opacity - the opposite of transparency. This opacity makes accountability nearly impossible. The government can point to its contractor, the broker to the airline, the airline to terms of a contract, and the parent company to the government – making piercing the corporate veil even harder than it already is.
And what about the deeper contradiction at the heart of it? The money that funds private equity investments come from the pensions of public employees, among others. Even as teachers and state employees fight against the detention and deportation of community members, their retirement money is funding the very infrastructure supporting these policies. While pension fund administrators may be guided by various ESG commitments, those commitments lack teeth or solid enforcement mechanisms.
Privatization doesn’t absolve the state of its power, it just obscures it further — creating a dangerous monopolistic environment that leaves our communities worse off. Which is why we follow the money and dig in to understand the full picture of Omni Air’s story.
“When the state outsources the physical work of detention and deportation, responsibility becomes fragmented. And with each additional layer, accountability becomes easier to deflect, even as the harm itself remains very real.”
—Manpreet Kaur Kalra
What human rights concerns have been documented on ICE deportation flights?
Researchers, journalists, attorneys, and immigrant rights organizations have documented allegations of prolonged shackling and restraint, denial of due process, torture and other mistreatment, including the removal of people to countries where they may face persecution or serious harm. Researchers at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights have grouped documented concerns involving ICE Air into four categories: torture, denial of due process, double punishment, and violations of non-refoulement protections.
What does non-refoulement mean?
Non-refoulement is a foundational principle of international refugee and human rights law. It prohibits governments from returning or transferring someone to a country where they face a serious risk of persecution, torture, or other grave harm. The principle can also apply when someone is transferred through an intermediary country that will foreseeably send them onward to a dangerous destination.
What do ESG policies have to do with the Omni Air story?
Stonepeak has publicly adopted responsible investment and ESG policies and has participated in voluntary responsible-investment initiatives. But ESG frameworks often focus on identifying environmental, social, and governance issues that could create financial risk or affect investment value. That is not necessarily the same as asking what harms an investment may cause, how those harms will be prevented, or who will be held accountable when they occur.
Suggested Listens and Reading:
Art of Citizenry Podcast Episode 34 – Big Beautiful Bill - How Private Equity is Profiting from Immigrant Detention
Mother Jones – ICE Deportation Flights Are Getting Longer and Crueler
Art of Citizenry Podcast Episode 19 – Profiting From Detention and the Criminalization of Immigration
UW Center for Human Rights – Abuses in the Air: Sports Travel and the Deportation Industry
Private Equity Playbook
Private Equity Playbook is a series by Art of Citizenry that examines how private equity is reshaping our everyday lives. In each episode, host Manpreet Kaur Kalra and long-time collaborator Anna Canning, investigate private equity in another corner of everyday life, digging into where it’s headed and what that means for us.
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