An aircraft chartered by the Trump administration stopped to refuel at Shannon Airport on St Patrick’s Day while deporting up to 15 Ukrainian nationals.
The aircraft, a private Gulfstream business jet, was hired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the controversial agency leading president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
It departed Mesa Gateway Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, the location of several Ice detention centres, on Monday morning before landing in Shannon early on Tuesday, according to ICE Flight Tracker, a group that tracks US deportation flights.
Flight tracking data shows the aircraft spent just over an hour on the ground in Ireland before departing for Jasionka, a town in southeastern Poland close to the Ukrainian border.
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It is understood the Ukrainian nationals on board were then transported to a border crossing at Shehyni by Ukranian officials before crossing into Ukraine.
The flight also stopped at Shannon Airport on its return leg on Wednesday morning. It landed in the US on Wednesday afternoon.
This is the second dedicated flight deporting Ukrainian nationals in recent months. In November 2025 a larger aircraft carrying 50 Ukrainians landed at Jasionka, having followed a similar route from Arizona.
The deportees included people who left Ukraine as children, when it was still part of the Soviet Union.
The aircraft was leased from aircraft rental company Journey, which regularly supplies business jets to Ice for deportation operations.
It is not known how many people were on board the flight but the website of Journey states the aircraft can hold 15 passengers.
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Shannon has long been used as a refuelling stop for US military aircraft. Flight records show it is also becoming increasingly important in Trump’s deportation operations.
As it ramps up deportations, the administration is renting large numbers of business jets from the private sector as well as using its own aircraft. These smaller jets often lack the range to get to their final destination, meaning they must refuel at airports such as Shannon.
Including this week’s operation, at least seven Ice flights have landed at Shannon while conducting deportation operations since Trump returned to power in January 2025.
In many cases the deportees had no connections to the countries they were deported to. In one case last May a group of eight men was deported to Djibouti in violation of a court order.
In January and February two more Ice deportation flights stopped at Shannon while deporting groups of Palestinians to Tel Aviv in Israel.
Another flight landed in Shannon last month while deporting a group of people to Cairo, Egypt.
In a statement the Department of Transport said it had “no information on the specified flight and can confirm that no authorisation was sought”.
“Stops at Irish airports, by private and commercial charters, which are technical stops for non-traffic purposes (ie not picking up or setting down passengers), do not require prior authorisation from the Department of Transport.”
Ice did not respond to requests for comment.
The deportation of Ukrainians from the US while the country is at war with Russia has been criticised by human rights bodies.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said no part of Ukraine is safe. “UNHCR encourages all States hosting refugees from Ukraine to continue extending protection and assistance to those fleeing the war,” it said in a statement last November.
