I wish that I could share in the celebration around hiring the “first-of-its-kind role” to monitor Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights at Boeing Field (“King County employee will monitor ICE flights from Boeing Field,” Aug. 18, Local News). However, the creation of this position at the behest of anti-deportation activists raises serious regulatory issues that could lead King County back into federal court — where it will likely lose again.
I have shared these concerns in writing with King County International Airport management as a member of the Boeing Field Airport Roundtable Advisory Committee. The Roundtable is a volunteer body of 18 members representing stakeholders including surrounding neighborhoods, organized labor and business entities on and off the airport property. We are appointed and confirmed by King County to “advise and make recommendations to the airport management, county executive, and county council on airport budget, programs, regulations, master plans, noise reduction strategies and other related matters.” I also have over 30 years of management experience in the aviation industry, including as an airport affairs executive in North America for an international airline.
Local governments using airports under their purview to advance public-policy objectives is nothing new. In the early 2000s, I was in the room when Massport (Boston-Logan International Airport) attempted to regulate nitrous oxide emissions from aircraft, and the city of San Francisco (SFO airport) added a lease term requiring airlines to provide same-sex partner benefits for every employee nationwide. Both were laudable goals, but they ran up against a legal framework where interstate air transportation is regulated almost entirely by the federal government. This fact and a rebuke from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have still not dissuaded King County.
As The Times story pointed out, the county executive issued an order in 2019 to ban ICE flights. When this action was struck down by a federal court, the county threatened airport leaseholders with nonrenewal if they provided services to any ICE-contracted flight. Once again, the federal court found that this action was unlawful as it constituted a discriminatory use of the airport — a decision that was upheld on appeal to the 9th Circuit in late 2024.
Not to be deterred by the courts, today King County has set out to create an onerous operating environment for ICE flights at the airport. Along with the promulgation of emergency regulations in November 2025, earlier this year the airport posted a job vacancy for a communications specialist. The primary duties of this position as listed on LinkedIn are monitoring charter flight operations and “coordinating communication with internal and external partners …,” and includes counting passengers and distributing notifications to interested parties when such flights are scheduled. This implies support to outside groups that seek to end ICE operations at Boeing Field.
Boeing Field’s operating and capital costs are wholly paid by user fees and grants funded by federal aviation taxes — no state, county or local taxes are levied for or allocated to the airport. Therefore, the use of aeronautical-related revenue to fund off-airport activities, like assisting those opposed to current federal immigration policy, could result in FAA complaints, DOT fines or the impairment of future Airport Improvement Program grants. The county’s assertion notwithstanding, it is unlikely that the strict scrutiny of non-ICE flights such as sports team charters or other private flights utilizing large aircraft and buses will ever be applied. Such disparate treatment of similar operations at the airport invites future litigation to be paid for by airport users or county taxpayers.
Boeing Field remains a unique economic asset for the Puget Sound region. The management team there must balance the obligation of federal compliance against the political whims of its county overseers. It is imperative that the activists cheering on this new role accept that federal law protects the continuation of ICE flights, and as a prudent operator of Boeing Field, King County should reaffirm its commitment to make the airfield available to all users on nondiscriminatory basis. Then we can all turn our focus to affecting political change through the ballot box, where it belongs.
