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NEW: Meet the private-equity firm -- and its billionaire immigrant CEO -- making millions off some of ICE's cruelest deportation flights. After a five-month investigation, my story for @motherjones.com: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

For years, Omni Air International has been ICE's only large-jet charter for Africa and Asia deportations -- usually a handful of trips a year. Last April, Omni's parent company was purchase by Stonepeak, and since then, ICE trips have skyrocketed.

These Omni ICE trips include the removal of dozens migrants to Ghana, a country they have never been to, and the transfer deportation of legal asylum seekers back to Russia and Iran, via Omni flights to Egypt, Qatar and Kuwait. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The flights are also getting longer. My analysis of public flight data shows that since Stonepeak's purchase of Omni, nearly half of its ICE trips lasted longer than 24 hours. All adult migrants and some children are shackled are ICE flights.

I spoke with a forensic pathologist on the risks of shackling for long periods -- excruciating pain, bruising, cuts, permanent nerve damage, and a "very high risk" of developing blood clots that could become deadly. She described these flights as torture. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Dozens of migrants on Omni ICE flights may have been shackled for more than 73 hours in October and more than 80 hours in December, leaving some elderly deportees too weak to walk. Flight data backs this up. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This is Stonepeak's CEO, Michael Dorrell. Australian immigrant billionaire. He keeps a pretty low profile but he sure loves real estate.

So here's the rub: Dozens of Stonepeak's investors are public-employee retirement funds, including many in blue states. And the human rights abuses happening on Omni's ICE flights would probably violate a lot of their ESG policies -- IF THEY KNEW ABOUT THEM.

There's a lot more in the story, including the account of a Maryland mother of four deported to Vietnam on an Omni plane in November. "I felt like I was less than an animal." Please read it. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I will post an update with more info on Stonepeak's investors, Omni's January ICE flights, and the migrants I talked to for this story, to my newsletter later today. You can subscribe here: gillianbrockell.ghost.io#/portal/

Here is the update, with info on how to help the recently deported people in the story, and which blue/swing state public funds are invested with Stonepeak. gillianbrockell.ghost.io/more-on-omni...