FILE PHOTO: A U.S. aircraft, carrying Venezuelan migrants after being deported from the United States, lands at the Simon Bolivar International Airport, in Maiquetia, Venezuela April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo
An aircraft used for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda leaked fuel onto the runway at the Mesa Gateway Airport, temporarily closing it, and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement pilot told air traffic controllers that his plane’s fuel gauge wasn’t working, according to audio reviewed by the Arizona Mirror.
“Can you send the trucks? We have a fuel leak, again,” the pilot told ground control at the airport Friday.
Mesa Gateway Airport is home to the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, or AROCC for short, a 25,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2010 to little fanfare and can house up to 157 detainees and 79 employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to an ICE press release from 2010.
It is also the operational hub of “ICE Air,” has been the site of severe overcrowding, and has also been a frequent departure point for flights that have sent immigrants to African countries they’ve never been to. The facility made national headlines because it was set to be where two gay Iranian men were set to be deported from, ultimately to their deaths.
“On October 16, there was a fuel spill at Mesa Gateway Airport involving a contract charter plane,” an unnamed U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Mirror. “The fire department responded and cleared the scene. There were no injuries or damage.”
The day after the leak occurred, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin visited the facility.
The airport itself said that there was a “mechanical issue resulting in a small fuel venting from the wing” which led to the aircraft returning to the ICE-operated hangar.
“Mesa Fire declared the aircraft safe, and it will depart when the operator has cleared the mechanical issues,” Ryan Smith, Mesa Gateway spokesman, told the Mirror.
The aircraft in question is operated by GlobalX, a charter company that plays a pivotal role in Trump’s deportation program.
“Negative because our indicators are MEL’d right now,” the ICE pilot replied to ground control when asked if they knew how much fuel that they had spilled.
MEL, or minimum equipment list, is a designation that allows operators to fly without certain pieces of equipment functioning temporarily from the Federal Aviation Administration. In this case, it meant that when ground control wanted to learn how much fuel the ICE jet had leaked, it couldn’t, because the aircraft did not have a functioning fuel gauge.
The leak and its subsequent clean up temporarily closed one of Mesa Gateway’s runways as airport officials inspected it, cleaned it and towed the ICE aircraft back to AROCC.
Ground control audio captured by liveATC.net also showed that ground control was unaware of the initial leak until Mesa Fire Department reported it as it tried to respond.
“Requesting clearance to the fuel spill,” a fire department truck can be heard saying over the radio.
“I’m not aware of a fuel spill,” ground control responded back.
Other charter services used by ICE have come under scrutiny for cutting corners, and in the past, ICE has been sued for the conditions on its flights. ICE flights have also been increasing, with more in September than in the prior two months, according to Human Rights First.
The plane that leaked its fuel has performed 2,040 total flights for ICE since 2021, according to data supplied by ICE Flight Monitor. This year, it has made 216 flights, up from the 209 it did for the entirety of 2025.
Detainees are supposed to be at AROCC for no more than 12 hours while they wait to be loaded onto a plane, either so they can be deported or transferred to a different ICE facility. The Mirror’s reporting found that publicly available data shows how overcrowded the facility has become in the past year. The average length of stay in 2026 is about 36 hours, compared to the same time frame in 2025, when the average stay was about 12 hours.
In 2025, the average daily population was approximately 21 people for the same timeframe. So far in 2026, there have been an average of 274 detainees each day. The Mirror found one individual in the data who stayed for 18 days, coinciding with a time when the population of the facility was near its peak of 777 individuals in a single day.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.
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