ICE Deportation Flights at Akron-Canton Airport: What Ohio Families Need to Know

Based on reporting by Doug Oplinger in the Ohio Capital Journal (republished by Cleveland Scene), September 24, 2026, plus Ohio Immigrant Alliance jail data and Ohio public-media coverage. Published by Herman Legal Group, an immigration law firm with offices in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Sources checked September 26, 2026.

Attorney reviewedReviewed by Richard T. Herman, Esq. on September 26, 2026

• 167ICE charter landings at Akron-Canton, late April to Sept. 17, 2026
• $46,513Landing fees the three carriers owed the airport as of the latest invoices
• 448People booked for ICE into four Ohio county jails, July 27 to Aug. 31
• 7,756People detained for ICE in Ohio, Jan. 2025 to Mar. 2026

What is happening at Akron-Canton Airport?

ICE moved its Northeast Ohio deportation flights to Akron-Canton in late April, after Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport partly closed its longest runway for repairs. Akron-Canton has since become a Great Lakes hub for removal flights. Planes typically arrive in the evening, sit overnight on a private apron run by the fixed-base operator Avflight on West Airport Drive, and leave the next morning, most often between 8 and 11 a.m.

Reporter Doug Oplinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, documented the routine through repeated site visits and flight-tracking data from FlightAware. Prison buses and vans, including vehicles from the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, the Butler County Jail, Mahoning County and the private prison company CoreCivic, arrive roughly 90 minutes before departure. Detainees’ restraints are checked, they board, and the buses stay until the plane leaves.

The carriers fly Boeing 737s and Airbus A319/A320s that seat roughly 125 to 180 passengers, plus a smaller CRJ200 regional jet. Most outbound flights head to Alexandria, Louisiana, home of a major ICE detention and deportation staging center. Some aircraft have arrived directly from Tapachula, Mexico, an endpoint for many deportees. The busiest stretch so far appears to have been the week after Labor Day. On September 9 alone, two jets left for Alexandria within about three hours of each other.

How does Ohio’s deportation pipeline work?

Put together, the public reporting describes a five-stage path from an arrest in an Ohio community to a flight out of the state. Each stage has a different legal window, and the windows narrow quickly. The map below shows where these stages happen.

1. Arrest in an Ohio community. Arrests have come from targeted operations (Springfield after Haiti’s TPS ended; a one-day operation near Oberlin in Lorain County), routine ICE check-ins and traffic stops. Legal window: Know your status and have your documents and an attorney’s number ready before an arrest ever happens.
2. Booking into a jail that holds people for ICE. Most people are first held in a county jail under contract with ICE, or in the privately run Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. Legal window: This is the most important stage. A lawyer can file a notice of appearance, seek a bond hearing, request a stay if there is a prior removal order, and, where the facts support it, file a federal habeas petition while the person is still held in Ohio.
3. Transport to Akron-Canton. Jails and contractors bus detainees to the airport, sometimes nearly four hours each way. Legal window: Very narrow. Reporting from the tarmac noted that buses stay until the plane rolls away, too late for a lawyer to pull a client off the flight.
4. Charter flight to Louisiana. Most flights go to Alexandria, Louisiana, where ICE stages people for removal or moves them to other detention centers. Legal window: The case continues, but now far from family, evidence and Ohio counsel, and potentially under a different federal circuit’s law.
5. Removal or continued detention elsewhere. People with final orders may be removed quickly. Others are held in Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania or elsewhere while their cases continue.

Why does a transfer from Ohio to Louisiana matter legally?

Moving a detainee out of Ohio is not just a change of address. It can change the court, the controlling law and a family’s practical ability to fight the case.

Two rules explain why speed matters. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Rumsfeld v. Padilla (2004), a core habeas petition generally belongs in the district where the person is confined, against the official holding them. And under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(2), a petition for review of a removal order goes to the court of appeals for the circuit where the immigration judge completed the proceedings. A petition filed while someone is still held in Ohio can keep the case before an Ohio federal court even if ICE later moves the person. Once the transfer happens first, that option is usually gone.

Circuits do not always agree on detention and bond questions, and those questions have been heavily litigated since 2025. Which circuit’s precedent applies can shape whether a detainee gets a bond hearing at all. HLG founder Richard T. Herman is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where Ohio detention and removal cases are litigated. For how appeals work, see our guide to deportation defense and immigration court.

Who is ICE detaining in Ohio?

The Akron-Canton flights are one visible piece of a statewide surge. The numbers below come from different sources and time frames, so they should be read side by side, not added together.

• Statewide: The Ohio Immigrant Alliance counted 7,756 people detained for ICE in Ohio between January 2025 and March 2026. Fewer than 5% had a violent conviction, and the average daily detained population rose from 117 in 2024 to about 656 in 2025.
• Recent jail bookings: From July 27 to August 31, 2026, 448 people were booked for ICE into four county-run jails, with Butler County accounting for more than two-thirds, according to the Alliance’s data as reported by the Ohio Capital Journal.
• Haitian Ohioans after TPS: Haitian bookings in the same four jails jumped to 63 in about five weeks after Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status ended, compared with 26 in the previous seven months, the Alliance reported. Haitians went from 2% to 39% of women detained there.
• Springfield: Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on September 4 that immigration authorities had made 380 arrests in Springfield, WOSU reported, without giving a time frame.
• Lorain County: An early-September operation near Oberlin, tied to a labor-trafficking investigation, ended with two people criminally charged and roughly 50 others taken into custody on civil immigration grounds.
• Nationally: DHS announced 50,925 ICE arrests in August 2026.

Many of the people on these flights are not being removed on criminal grounds. Former TPS holders, people with pending asylum cases and people arrested at routine check-ins can end up on the same bus. If a family member lost TPS, see our explainer on the Supreme Court’s TPS ruling in Mullin v. Doe and what individual options may remain.

Which Ohio jails hold people for ICE?

Six facilities in five Ohio locations hold people for ICE. Detainees from several of them have been seen arriving by bus or van at Akron-Canton Airport.

Families near these facilities can find local help through our pages for Akron and Canton, Youngstown, Toledo, Dayton and Springfield and Cincinnati and Butler County. The ACLU of Ohio’s ICE in Ohio report tracks which counties hold jail-bed, transport and 287(g) agreements.

What should families do if a loved one is detained by ICE in Ohio?

Act while the person is still in Ohio. These steps are general information, not a substitute for advice on a specific case.

• Locate them. Search the ICE Online Detainee Locator with the person’s A-number and country of birth, or full name, country and date of birth. Records can lag or disappear during transfers; our guide explains what to do when the ICE locator shows nothing. Call the county jail directly as well.
• Get a lawyer on record fast. An attorney files Form G-28 with ICE and Form EOIR-28 with the immigration court. That gives counsel access to the file and a voice before any transfer or removal. Hearing dates can be checked through the immigration court’s Automated Case Information portal.
• Ask about bond. Many detainees can request a custody redetermination before an immigration judge, though eligibility has been contested and some people face mandatory detention. See our 2026 guide to bond for ICE detainees in Ohio, how immigration bond works and the first 72 hours after an ICE arrest in Ohio.
• If there is an old removal order, move immediately. Options can include a motion to reopen with an emergency stay request, or ICE Form I-246, Application for a Stay of Deportation or Removal. ICE’s own form warns that a pending I-246 does not stop removal. Strict limits apply to reopening; see our analysis of Matter of M-M-L-J-.
• Gather documents now. Passport and ID, the A-number, every immigration notice, proof of Ohio residence, tax returns, proof of U.S. citizen or resident family, letters from employers and clergy, and certified dispositions for any arrest. A traffic or criminal case can change the strategy; see crimmigration.
• Do not sign anything without advice. Stipulated removal, voluntary departure and similar papers can end a case permanently.

What do the unpaid landing fees reveal?

Invoices released by the Akron-Canton Airport Authority show that Eastern Airlines, Global X and Air Wisconsin owed a combined $46,513 for 148 billed landings, including $33,927 past due for May, June and July. That total equals roughly 4% of the airport’s $1.1 million in 2025 landing-fee revenue. Airport officials said the carriers had not contacted them about the late fees.

The dollar amount is small by federal standards. The transparency gap is the larger story. The airport, a public agency bound by Ohio’s public-records law, answered questions promptly. ICE did not respond for weeks. The charter airlines and the private ground operator declined to share operational details, and a county sheriff’s office referred most questions to ICE. When removal logistics run through private contractors, families and their lawyers often cannot learn when a relative will be moved until it has already happened. That is why the legal work has to start at booking, not at the airport fence.

For Ohio’s wider financial exposure, see Richard T. Herman’s analysis of Ohio’s projected $6.9 billion share of deportation costs and our look at ICE’s $1.07 billion warehouse purchases.

Will ICE flights move back to Youngstown?

Possibly. Youngstown-Warren’s runway reopened in the last week of August, and airport officials there understood that ICE might return. As of the September 24 report, neither airport had been told. Youngstown-Warren sits about 15 minutes from CoreCivic’s Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, while Akron-Canton is on a major interstate between two large metro areas. Either way, the legal steps for families are the same.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• Immigration bond in Ohio: the first 72 hours after an ICE arrest
• Still in custody, gone from the database: ICE locator changes
• Cleveland Immigration Court: the complete guide
• Could Springfield help drive America’s next immigration reform?
• Where can I get legal help for deportation defense?
• Can immigrants travel inside the U.S.? Checkpoint and airport risks

This article provides general information and commentary, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Detention law and ICE practices are changing quickly; confirm current rules with an attorney.