Texas paid at least $135,000 to fly migrants from El Paso to Chicago, records show

The flight chartered by Texas emergency management officials last month to transport scores of migrants out of the state carried a six-figure price tag, records obtained by the American-Statesman show.

On Dec. 19, more than 120 migrants boarded a Boeing 737 in El Paso and flew to Chicago's O’Hare International Airport, marking an apparent escalation in Gov. Greg Abbott's policy of transporting recently arrived migrants to Democratic-led "sanctuary" cities.

Chartering the flight cost the state $135,000, according to a Texas Department of Emergency Management invoice obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request. The cost per passenger, based on the invoice, was at least $1,100.

The Dec. 19 flight was the first time TDEM had flown migrants to an out-of-state city as part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott's $11 billion border security initiative. The flight came one day after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced the city impounded a bus originating from Eagle Pass, a Texas border city, with 49 migrants aboard because it dropped off passengers without a permit.

The $135,000 figure represents a portion of the total cost of flying migrants since the initial Dec. 19 flight. Since then, the state has flown nearly 900 passengers out of the state, said Wes Rapaport, a TDEM spokesperson, in a statement Monday.

Rapaport did not answer further questions about the flights, advising the Statesman to submit public information requests for specifics on the subsequent flights. The newspaper's requests seeking invoices for those flights were pending Monday.

iAero Airways facilitated the flight on Dec. 19, the records show. The Greensboro, North Carolina-based airline, previously known as Swift Air, did not respond to a list of questions about the flight Monday.

Swift Air, purchased by iAero in 2018, was one of two primary aviation subcontractors used to deport migrants for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a University of Washington Center For Human Rights report published in April 2019.

Last fall, iAero Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to a news release on the airline's website.

Migrants participating in the state's program must to sign a consent form, officials have said. The Statesman requested blank copies. TDEM provided English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Cantonese and Portuguese versions of the form.

Under a space for a signature, the form has check-the-box spaces for seven cities outside of Texas: Washington D.C.; New York (City), New York; Chicago, Illinois; Philadephia, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; Los Angeles, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Since April 2022, TDEM has facilitated the buses used to transport more than 100,000 migrants to out-of-state cities, according to a Friday news release from Abbott's press office.

Under the program, the largest number of migrants, 37,500, were taken to New York. Chicago ranks second with more than 31,200 migrants.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas paid at least $135,000 to fly migrants to Chicago, records show