Two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The lawsuit seeks records that show how ICE Air Operations could be used to carry out Trump’s pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

In 2023, ICE Air Operations chartered commercial and private flights to remove 140,000 people, according to the agency’s annual report. The ACLU said ICE also uses the flights to move people between detention facilities around the country.

“For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and Freedom of Information Act litigation has been a central part of our roadmap,” Kyle Virgien, the ACLU's national prison project senior staff attorney, said in a statement. “A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation."

The lawsuit comes three months after the ACLU filed a public records request for ICE to provide air transportation information that has not been answered.  

Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation, ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez told Spectrum News.

While campaigning, Trump repeatedly pledged to conduct the largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history. On Monday, he confirmed in a Truth Social post that he plans to declare a national emergency and use military assets to carry out the plan. 

About 11.7 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S., according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

Filed in U.S. District Court in central California, the ACLU lawsuit seeks the immediate release of records for ICE’s use of air and ground transportation to detain and deport noncitizens, as well as a list of airfields the agency uses.