As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued to arrest and deport illegal immigrants across the country, the liberal media had seemingly forgotten the purpose of law enforcement. On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe gushed for Association of Professional Flight Attendants representative Alex Roberts’s op-ed in The Tennessean, “Commercial airlines are for consumers and cargo, not ICE deportations.” Roberts demanded: “these commercial airlines should not be in the business of deportations.” 

Roberts was inspired to write his opinion piece after an interaction with an illegal immigrant and an ICE officer on a commercial flight. He argued that: 

The real possibility that the folks being transported on commercial flights could be at-risk of death upon entry to their country of origin or elsewhere- by gangs, domestic abusers, corrupt officials, or environmental and economic ruin- is something airline crew shouldn’t be involved in facilitating.  

Was that Roberts' excuse for ICE to stop enforcing the law, or because he worked for the airlines? There’s a possibility for violence in any country, but that does not mean that the United States should shield those who have crossed the border illegally, who could be a potential threat to citizens.   

Roberts emphasized the comfort priority of a “vacation” or “business trip” over enforcing the law: 

And my main argument is that these commercial airlines should not be in the business of deportations that, like you said Wille, there are specialized government planes that can be used and then specialized contracts for certain carriers that can be negotiated, but they should not be on your next flight whenever you’re going on your next vacation or your next business trip.  

ICE can legally carry out deportations via commercial airlines. ICE Commercial Air Operations was “the commercial air transportation entity that coordinates all escorted and unescorted commercial removal travel requests received from the 25 ERO field offices,” according to ICE’s website. 

Co-host Willie Geist asked Roberts, “Do they feel pressure from the administration to do this as a business proposition,” as if ICE hadn’t already been doing it for years.  

This opinion piece pushed the agenda that MSNBC wanted to cover: how to make ICE arrests and deportations look “cruel” when they uphold the law.    

To add a classic liberal “empathic” note, Roberts voiced:  

Folks shouldn’t have to worry about the little girl sitting behind them, whether or not she’s being separated from their family and what country she is in route to and what circumstances that she will face when she arrives there. That’s just not something that should be part of your travel process, is my argument. 

No one wanted to see the most vulnerable people, children, in that situation, but at what point does the law stop being enforced for the comfort of other people on a commercial flight? What was the difference between someone who yelled threats on a plane and had to be escorted off by law enforcement and someone who crossed the border illegally? 

The liberal media would point to all the “loopholes” with ICE’s arrests and deportations while they ignored the law to protect the American people. MSNBC proved once again that it cared more about its agenda being implemented than looking into the reality of the law.   

Click here for the transcripts. 

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
8/5/25
7:39 am Eastern

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The Trump administration is pushing to increase deportations nationwide, aiming to expel millions of migrants. Part of its plan to accomplish that goal is the use of commercial airlines to shuttle migrants out of the country.

In a new op-ed for The Tennessean, a flight attendant discusses his personal experience working on a flight with deportations and why he objects to the practice, quote, “The real possibility that the folks being transported on commercial flights could be at-risk of death upon entry to their country of origin or elsewhere- by gangs, domestic abusers, corrupt officials, or environmental and economic ruin-is something airline crew shouldn't be involved in facilitating. And during perhaps the most frightening time in their lives, migrants shouldn't be paraded in front of other passengers traveling for fun, family or business.”

Joining us now, the author of that op-ed, Alex Roberts. He's an aviation worker and a National Government Affairs Representative for a major airline union representing nearly 30,000 workers across the country.

So, thank you for coming on the show. I mean, I ultimately want to ask you what you think the alternative must be, but explain why you wrote this piece and what other airline workers like you are experiencing and seeing on these flights that have deportations on them.

ALEX ROBERTS: Good morning, Mika. Thank you so much for having back on. The central point of my piece is that commercial airlines should not be a tool for ICE. Commercial flights are for consumers and cargo, not for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Therefore, in my article, I argue that the flying public should not be unwilling or unwitting participants in this cruel process.

And flight crew members like myself and the 28,000 flight attendants that I represent through the APFA union should not be forced into roles of facilitation for these deportations. The bottom line is that these commercial air carriers, in my mind and my opinion, as I argue in the piece, should discontinue and disallow these deportation operations. Again at commercial airlines with the flying public and crew members who really signed on to join the airlines to reunite family and friends, to make a world a more welcoming place- not to oversee deportations.

BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.

WILLIE GEIST: Alex, as you say, there are planes for government operations. There are military planes there’re C-130s. There are all kinds of planes that can be used for something like this. What is your sense of how the commercial airlines themselves are feeling about this? Do they feel pressure from the administration to do this as a business proposition, or what does that relationship look like right now?

ROBERTS: Well, to this extent that I have familiarity with the airline, they are kind of in lockstep with the administration when it comes to this process. But I will say there is precedent for the airlines to make a showing against what the administration wishes. Back in 2018, during the first Trump administration, we organized a write-in campaign to our leadership urging that they no longer participate in these deportation flights that were separating children from their families during the family separation policy. 

And after several months of this campaign that we had internally, as well as feedback from the flying public, they did come out in a joint statement and said that their airline would not participate in separating families.

So again, there is precedent here. And my main argument is that these commercial airlines should not be in the business of deportations that, like you said Willie, there are specialized government planes that can be used and then specialized contracts for certain carriers that can be negotiated, but they should not be on your next flight whenever you’re going on your next vacation or your next business trip.

Folks shouldn’t have to worry about the little girl sitting behind them, whether or not she’s being separated from their family and what country she is in route to and what circumstances that she will face when she arrives there. That’s just not something that should be part of your travel process, is my argument.

BRZEZINSKI: Alex Robert, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning.