Donald Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda Has A Stunning Stakeholder: Invoice Gates

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda has a stunning stakeholder: Invoice Gates.

The multibillionaire tech mogul and philanthropist owns a big portion of a key service supplier for immigration flights.

And now, with new funding from Congress and an aggressive push from the White Home, extra and extra immigration flights are taking off, transporting immigration detainees each inside america and to their house nations — or, in some circumstances, to locations they’ve by no means been earlier than.

Gates’ connection to the U.S. detention and deportation machine is an organization known as Signature Aviation. Signature calls itself “the world’s largest network of private aviation terminals,” and it’s a linchpin within the day-to-day equipment of Trump’s immigration enforcement equipment.

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Non-public constitution carriers subcontracted for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to move immigration detainees — a part of a community often called “ICE Air,” a reference to the Division of Homeland Safety’s ICE Air Operations — use Signature’s companies each day. As a fixed-base operator, or FBO, Signature provides floor crews, aviation gas, boarding stairs, and airplane hangar house at tons of of airports all over the world, largely in america.

The personal agency that holds Gates’ and the Gates Basis Belief’s property, Cascade Funding, elevated its stake within the firm to 30% in 2021, when it and two companions purchased Signature outright for $4.7 billion. Human rights advocates — airplane trackers and activists who maintain tabs on deportation flights, in addition to the aviation and logistics corporations cashing in on them — say Gates’ stake in Signature is at odds together with his humanitarian work, together with the Gates Basis’s assist of a plethora of immigration-focused nonprofits. With out FBOs like Signature, they are saying, Trump’s mass deportation agenda can be caught on the bottom.

Gates himself has not publicly commented on Signature Aviation’s essential position in servicing ICE Air flights. Neither the Gates Basis nor Cascade Asset Administration Firm, which oversees Cascade Funding, responded to a number of requests for remark.

At one airport, Signature seems to have labored to make its branding much less visibly related to immigration flights. Final month, a set of Signature boarding stairs in Seattle — the place the county authorities arrange cameras in 2023 to keep watch over immigration flights — acquired a new accent: two sheets of cardboard, taped over the corporate’s logos.

FBOs “are critical, obviously, because they provide fuel and other services while the plane makes its stops,” mentioned Tom Cartwright, a retired monetary govt who has tracked ICE flights for practically six years.

Cartwright estimated that by the top of June, 95% of the ICE Air flights he’d tracked had been operated by constitution corporations, with army and Coast Guard planes getting used for the rest. That doesn’t embrace a tally of economic flights used to deport individuals, he mentioned — however in fiscal yr 2017, ICE Air used constitution flights to take away or switch 181,317 individuals, in contrast with simply 8,288 who had been eliminated on industrial flights, in response to a 2019 DHS inspector common report.

“In this case, when they’re doing 1,100 flights a month, that’s a pretty significant piece of the operation — so they’re absolutely critical,” he mentioned of the planes carrying immigration detainees. “Without a fixed-base operator, I’m not sure this system really operates.”

In a latest report masking native connections to alleged human rights violations stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, the College of Washington Heart for Human Rights (UWCHR), which has studied ICE Air flights for years, known as out Gates’ Signature Aviation funding particularly.

“In Washington, our most famous philanthropist grows his investments in part by supporting a company complicit in gross human rights abuses, potentially ascending to the level of crimes against humanity,” the report alleged.

To report this story, HuffPost scoured authorities data and airplane location information, collected plane-spotting reviews from activists on the bottom, and matched aviation pictures to planes recognized to ferry ICE detainees. Nonetheless, ICE Air operates largely within the shadows, and plenty of key gamers, together with Signature Aviation, didn’t reply detailed questions on their operations.

So we wished to see the method for ourselves. On Aug. 31, HuffPost witnessed Signature Aviation in motion. On the tarmac of Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport, a pair hundred yards from Signature’s personal terminal, a Signature-branded set of boarding stairs and gas tanker met a Boeing 737 belonging to Avelo Airways, the low-cost provider that has confronted protests and a boycott from potential passengers over its work with ICE Air. Like different Avelo planes working ICE Air flights, this airplane, with the tail quantity N801XT, was not too long ago painted fully white, erasing any outstanding Avelo branding.

One after the other, 16 individuals wearing white and grey, and shackled on the wrists, waist and ankles, hobbled off the airplane and onto Signature Aviation’s boarding stairs, unable to achieve the handrail on the steps. On the tarmac, the second man in line shuffled his toes barely, taking uneven steps as his head drooped, making him look older than the remaining. The airplane had simply completed a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, a central hub for ICE Air flights, which means the boys had probably been shackled for a number of hours straight. The detainees waited on the tarmac as they had been processed into sprinter vans with flashing police lights. A Signature-branded gas tanker sidled as much as the airplane, and personnel on the bottom hauled plastic mesh baggage recognized for use for detainees’ private belongings. Finally, accompanied by Port Authority police automobiles, the caravan left the tarmac, probably heading to close by ICE detention services.

Two weeks prior, HuffPost noticed the same scene play out, when a airplane operated by Jap Air Categorical — the identical plane CNN not too long ago noticed ferrying individuals in ICE custody — was met with comparable fanfare at Newark. Regulation enforcement automobiles with flashing lights approached that airplane as nicely, together with one which appeared just like a shuttle bus beforehand filmed transporting detainees out of Delaney Corridor, the notorious immigration jail.

In each circumstances, after about an hour on the bottom, the planes continued on their approach across the nation, ferrying individuals in ICE custody to different detention services, and for some, onto their final deportation, in response to one activist airplane spotter who goes by the moniker “JJ in DC” on Bluesky and who helped HuffPost monitor the plane.

Such scenes at the moment are commonplace all through the nation. However they aren’t new. For over a decade, personal aviation contractors have dealt with tens of hundreds of ICE Air flights, in response to Cartwright’s depend, which may collectively switch or take away tons of of hundreds of individuals yearly.

Current video from King County’s cameras at Boeing Area-King County Worldwide Airport in Seattle exhibits a grim parade of detainees. One climbs a set of boarding stairs whereas shackled and holding a cane. One other, additionally shackled — detainees usually are, together with throughout flights — is manhandled by a number of guards who run him onto the airplane; a couple of toes earlier than Signature’s staircase, the group stumbles and the person falls onto the tarmac.

“The use of restraints on detainees during deportation flights is a standard ICE protocol and an essential measure to ensure the safety and well-being of both detainees and the officers/agents accompanying them,” an unidentified DHS spokesperson informed HuffPost in an announcement. “Our practices align with those followed by other relevant authorities and is fully in line with established legal standards.”

“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously,” the assertion added. “ICE Air Operations flights are law enforcement sensitive. ICE conducts flights throughout the U.S. on a daily basis. For operational security purposes, ICE does not discuss ongoing or future operations.”

Activists working to finish ICE Air’s presence in Seattle have zeroed in on Signature’s work as a service supplier for constitution flights.

“The presence of Signature is essential for ICE to be within the airport, because without having a fixed-base operator to service the planes, they can’t land there, and no one else is doing this type of work,” mentioned Guadalupe Gonzalez, flight monitoring coordinator for La Resistencia, an immigrant-led activist group in Washington state that seeks to finish immigrant detention and deportation. “Signature Aviation specifically are the ones responsible for servicing ICE at Boeing Field.”

Gonzalez mentioned La Resistencia volunteers, who observe ICE Air transfers in particular person at Boeing Area, have lately reported seeing detainees certain within the “WRAP” restraint system, a kind of full-body restraint gadget that has come underneath scrutiny previously. Extra generally, Gonzalez mentioned, individuals with mobility points had been made to stroll up Signature’s stairs to a ready ICE Air flight.

Not having a presence at Boeing Area, Gonzalez mentioned, “would impair [ICE’s] efforts to deport as many people as possible — or, at the very minimum, make it more costly.”

Signature Aviation didn’t reply a prolonged listing of questions on its practices, together with its involvement with ICE Air. As an alternative, the corporate despatched a one-sentence assertion.

“Our FBOs must accept flight operations that comply with the law, FAA regulations and contract requirements at federally funded airports,” mentioned Rosanna Fiske, the corporate’s international head of company affairs.

Fiske didn’t reply to follow-up questions in regards to the nature of Signature’s obligations, together with the phrases of contracts it might have signed with ICE Air constitution operators.

Gates is a major shareholder in Signature Aviation. Cascade Funding LLC, the holding firm for Gates’ and the Gates Basis’s property, first purchased a bit of the corporate’s predecessor, BBA Aviation, in 2009. In 2021, a bidding battle broke out over the corporate, and Gates’ Cascade — then Signature’s largest particular person shareholder, with a 19% stake — joined forces with Blackstone Group and International Infrastructure Companions to purchase it outright. (International Infrastructure Companions was acquired by BlackRock in 2024.)

Working collectively, the three corporations purchased Signature for $4.7 billion, with Cascade winding up with 30% of the corporate.

Cascade Funding LLC is overseen by Cascade Asset Administration Firm. That agency’s chief funding officer is Michael Larson, who has Gates’ “complete trust and faith,” Gates mentioned in 2014, at a celebration he threw celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Larson managing his property. The Wall Avenue Journal reported on the time that their association was “simple: Mr. Larson makes money, and Mr. Gates gives it away.” Cascade Funding is situated in the identical Kirkland, Washington, workplace park as Gates’ private workplace, The New York Occasions famous in a 2021 story. Cascade’s mandate, one unnamed former worker informed the Occasions for a similar story, was: “We don’t want Bill’s name in the headlines.”

Cascade’s work on Gates’ behalf has come up within the information earlier than.

For instance, when The Land Report revealed in 2021 that Gates was “America’s largest private farmland owner,” what they had been actually speaking about, as NBC Information later described it, was farmland “purchased through a constellation of companies that all link back to [Bill and Melinda Gates’] investment group, Cascade Investments, based in Kirkland, Washington.” When Gates was requested about his farmland purchases, which made nationwide information, he mentioned, “My investment group chose to do this” and “all these decisions are made by a professional investment team.”

The identical may apply to Signature Aviation. It’s unclear how a lot Gates is aware of about his stake within the firm, or whether or not he is aware of that Signature performs such an important position in Trump’s mass deportation operation.

Nonetheless, “it would be surprising if Gates couldn’t influence a decision to disinvest of this particular investment,” mentioned Cartwright, who earlier than his retirement spent many years at J.P. Morgan, together with as chief monetary officer of 1 division that lined 5,000 financial institution branches.

The inspiration has beforehand addressed considerations about its cash being invested in Signature Aviation. One grievance not too long ago filed by EthicsPoint, a public-facing portal to submit moral considerations to the muse, and later shared with HuffPost, accused the muse of “providing material support for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement” by its funding in Signature.

In response, the muse mentioned it didn’t “control or participate in the activities of the Gates Foundation Trust.” As an alternative, the muse mentioned, the belief’s property had been “independently managed by Cascade Asset Management Company.”

Look carefully and also you’ll see Signature Aviation popping up throughout Trump’s mass deportation pipeline.

In truth, the corporate is a part of maybe essentially the most notorious footage of Trump’s second time period thus far: an “ASMR” video that glorifies shackling and transporting immigration detainees. The video was filmed at Boeing Area, the place the variety of contracted ICE flights, all serviced by Signature Aviation, has shot up this yr. It additionally occurs to be a 20-minute drive from the Gates Basis’s workplaces.

Signature’s distinct brand is seen on the high of a set of boarding stairs about 5 seconds into the clip:

Signature didn’t reply HuffPost’s inquiry about the place it serviced ICE Air flights, however the firm has had a major footprint in servicing aviation contractors employed by ICE. In 2019, one inside ICE doc listed Signature because the designated FBO for contracted ICE flights at 12 main home airports: Atlanta, Dallas, Newark, Houston, Laredo, Kansas Metropolis, Memphis, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Chicago, San Diego, San Antonio, and Denver, the place HuffPost not too long ago noticed a set of Signature boarding stairs pulled as much as one other all-white Avelo Air airplane.

And whereas it’s not clear whether or not ICE Air nonetheless makes use of each airport on the 2019 listing, the listing additionally doesn’t embrace airports the place Signature has not too long ago been noticed servicing ICE Air flights. For instance, the 2019 doc doesn’t embrace Seattle’s Boeing Area. Signature now incessantly companies ICE flights there, and detainees picked up on the airport have ended up in El Salvador’s CECOT jail, Guantánamo Bay, and South Sudan, in response to the latest report from UWCHR. The human rights heart beforehand obtained the 2019 listing of airports that listed FBOs servicing the ICE flights pursuant to a public data request to ICE.

Signature additionally seems to be servicing immigration flights out of Jacksonville, Florida. One March e-mail with the topic line “ICE Schedule This Week” notes a number of constitution flights touchdown at Jacksonville Worldwide Airport. The activist group Floor ICE — which goals to “limit the rate at which I.C.E. can transport and remove its detainees” — obtained the doc by a public data request and shared it with HuffPost. Recipients of the e-mail included Signature Aviation’s Jacksonville supervisor in addition to a number of e-mail accounts related to GEO Group, a personal jail contractor.

In July, Fox 13 Information Utah captured video of obvious immigration detainees climbing a set of Signature boarding stairs at Salt Lake Metropolis Worldwide Airport.

And Rolling Stone not too long ago noticed a Coast Guard airplane refueling and boarding ICE detainees at Baltimore/Washington Worldwide Airport. Impartial journalist Gillian Brockell, who wrote the Rolling Stone story, informed HuffPost that Signature Aviation refueled the airplane.

Signature can also be the solely FBO at Buffalo Niagara Worldwide Airport, Floor ICE has famous. Planes carrying immigration detainees go by that airport a few times every week, in response to Cartwright, who’s presently transitioning his work over to the group Human Rights First.

Numerous entities concerned with Gates’ ICE Air funding proclaim their dedication to human rights.

Signature Aviation itself says it’s dedicated to “refraining from coercion and never deliberately causing harm to anyone” and that it takes steps “to confirm that our businesses and supply chains are free from modern slavery and human trafficking.” One other firm coverage requires that suppliers “never use, support, or engage in forced or indentured labor, or practices involving coercion, deception, or abuse of power — including human trafficking, slavery and child labor.” As a part of its efforts to fight human trafficking, it says it works with the Division of Homeland Safety. (ICE falls underneath the purview of DHS.)

Cascade says it takes “a value-oriented approach” to investing cash for Gates and the Gates Basis Belief, and that one in all its targets is to “protect Bill and the Trust by acting lawfully, honestly, ethically, and with integrity, safeguarding their assets and information.” It notes that “neither Cascade nor the Trust play a role in the grantmaking or operations of the foundation” and that the muse “does not control or participate in the Trust’s investment activities.”

The Gates Basis says its mission is to “create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life,” and the muse has awarded grants to a number of outstanding immigration-focused nonprofits.

The experiences of immigration detainees touring on ICE Air — significantly ICE’s use of shackles, which bind their wrists and ankles — seemingly stand in distinction to these commitments.

The shackles “felt very disrespectful, dehumanizing to a lot of degrees,” Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist jailed and threatened with deportation for his beliefs, recalled to Zeteo after his launch from ICE custody in June.

After greater than a day of journey, “by the time I arrived in Jena, [Louisiana, home to an infamous ICE jail,] I couldn’t walk because my leg was swollen from the shackles,” Khalil added.

Deportation flight passengers have alleged “the use of racist epithets and insults, and rough physical treatment upon boarding,” in addition to, in additional remoted circumstances, “beatings, the use of straitjackets, verbal abuse and threats, and the denial of access to restrooms,” in response to a UWCHR abstract of public data it acquired detailing the complaints.

In a single case, a Somalia-bound deportation flight sat on a tarmac in Senegal for a full day attributable to technical points, whereas detainees remained shackled inside and the airplane’s bathrooms “overfilled with human waste,” in response to a subsequent lawsuit. The airplane finally returned the entire detainees to america. (The swimsuit was in the end dismissed for jurisdictional causes, and lots of the individuals on the ill-fated flight continued to face deportation proceedings.)

Counting on personal contractors at each stage of the deportation course of creates main vulnerabilities for ICE — which can be why the Trump administration is reportedly contemplating buying its personal fleet of deportation planes.

Whereas large personal jail corporations like CoreCivic and GEO Group are depending on federal contracts to outlive, FBOs work in several financial situations. Most depend on enterprise from company and personal jet journey, and so they’re typically topic to native political stress. For instance, Floor ICE has inspired pilots to write down to Signature Aviation and “let them know you will not be buying fuel from them” attributable to their work for ICE.

Greater than wherever else, Seattle’s Boeing Area represents how native anti-deportation sentiment can have an effect on FBOs and critically decelerate ICE’s work.

In 2019, amid stress from native activist teams and an impactful report from UWCHR regarding “King County Collaboration with ICE Air Deportation Flights at Boeing Field,” then-King County govt Dow Constantine ordered, amongst different issues, that future leases at Boeing Area include a prohibition in opposition to the personal transport of immigration detainees. The FBO for these flights on the time, Trendy Aviation, stopped servicing them quickly after that govt order, despite the fact that the order was in the end blocked in court docket. Two different FBOs on the airport, together with Signature, additionally mentioned they “will not take over from Modern in servicing ICE flights,” The Seattle Occasions reported on the time, citing the airport’s director. (Matt Dill, common supervisor at Trendy Aviation’s location at Boeing Area, declined to remark.)

“Without the help of such companies,” the paper reported, “flights cannot operate at the airport. Though they can technically take off and land, [airport director John] Parrott said, flights need a company to open gates, to provide stairs to get passengers on and off planes, and to offer fuel.”

With out an FBO in Seattle, ICE was compelled to route planes by Yakima — the place the airport was smaller, extra distant, and hours inland. In a court docket submitting, the Trump administration mentioned it solely landed on the distant airport after approaching three others “without success.”

The Trump administration additionally acknowledged on the time that this shift jammed the gears of its deportation equipment, significantly when it got here to individuals detained on the Northwest Detention Heart in Tacoma.

“Transporting detainees from Tacoma to Yakima, as compared to Tacoma to Boeing Field, adds, at a minimum, six hours of travel time to the process of executing an ICE Air flight,” the submitting learn.

“Additionally,” it continued, “the transport to Yakima and back frequently requires the use of an additional bus and two additional officers, as well as additional meal and fuel costs. This takes resources away from federal law enforcement tasks that would otherwise be performed if the ICE Air flights were flying out of Boeing Field. Relocation of the ICE Air flights to Yakima also impacts ICE operations in Yakima, requiring ICE to utilize staffing of at least two officers from its Yakima sub-office to facilitate the flight processing in Yakima. Additionally, travel over the mountain passes in winter is hazardous, and frequently either slowed significantly by road conditions or suspended altogether, as was the case on January 14, 2020, when an ICE Air flight had to be cancelled due to road conditions prohibiting transport.”

On March 30, 2023, a federal choose dominated in opposition to the county’s govt order requiring future FBO leases to ban work on deportation flights.

“At that time, Signature Aviation said, ‘OK, we’ll do that business,’” recalled Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, the director of UWCHR. “Ever since then, the ICE flights have resumed at Boeing Field, and they’re being served by Signature Aviation.”

Native public radio station KNKX described Signature on the time as “the fixed-base operator that agreed to service ICE flights at Boeing Field.”

By Might 2, 4 years after ICE Air flights stopped at Boeing Area, they resumed once more, in response to data of the flights stored by the county. Signature has been their sole service supplier ever since, in response to the identical data.

For Godoy, the years-long absence of deportation flights working by Seattle exhibits simply how necessary FBOs like Signature Aviation are.

“Here in Seattle, what we saw in 2019 and to this date, was that when there was enough local concern, and people expressing local outrage about it, that the other FBOs also didn’t want to do it,” she mentioned.

“There are businesses who will say, ‘No, we don’t want this, we don’t want to be associated with this.’”

Native stress additionally could have not too long ago disrupted ICE Air operations on the opposite aspect of the nation. Final month, after media consideration and native protest over the spike in immigration flights from Hanscom Area in Bedford, Massachusetts — together with particular consideration on Signature Aviation for servicing the flights — the ICE Air flights to that airport stopped, as a substitute going by Portsmouth Worldwide Airport at Pease in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the place Signature doesn’t have a presence.

“It was because the activists were so annoying, basically, to that airfield, and they were so focused on Signature, that they decided to shift to [Portsmouth International Airport] as the hub for New England,” JJ in DC posited to HuffPost, referring to the shift from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

Godoy additionally speculated that the shift got here in response to protest.

“My impression is that, for Signature, the ICE flights are only a portion of their business, and not the majority of their business — and when the ICE flights become sufficiently notorious, that threatens Signature’s overall business, and then they say ‘no thanks,’” she mentioned.

“And it looks to me — this is speculation, because I’m not privy to the discussions between ICE and Signature — like that’s what happened at Hanscom Field,” Godoy added. “So now, ICE is going to be using a more far-away airport, which is more inconvenient for them. And they haven’t said why.”

Nonetheless, even obvious route modifications could not final: Two flights from Avelo Airways planes landed at Hanscom Area on Friday and Saturday, flight data present. The airline, ICE, and Signature Aviation didn’t reply to questions in regards to the goal of the flights.

The monetary backing behind Signature Aviation doesn’t cease with Invoice Gates and the Gates Basis.

Annual monetary reviews reviewed by HuffPost present a number of massive public pension funds are additionally stakeholders in Signature.

Institutional traders Blackstone and BlackRock (by way of International Infrastructure Companions) personal the rest of the corporate that Gates doesn’t. And people large asset administration corporations typically make investments cash in numerous funds on behalf of public pensions, nonprofits and college endowments.

One such fund, a BlackRock product known as International Infrastructure Companions Fund IV, has 68 such restricted companions, in response to information from PitchBook, a private-equity market database.

That features the California Public Workers’ Retirement System, a public pension that in 2023 held greater than $350 million of the fund; the New York State Widespread Retirement Fund; the Utah State College endowment; the Oregon Public Workers Retirement System; the Washington State Funding Board; and greater than 60 others.

BlackRock and the California Public Workers’ Retirement System declined to remark. The New York State Widespread Retirement Fund, Oregon Funding Council (which manages OPERS’ investments) and the Utah State College endowment didn’t reply. A spokesperson for WSIB informed HuffPost that, as a coverage, it doesn’t touch upon particular person holdings.

Washington’s stake was flagged by UWCHR, which warned in its latest report that “public workers’ retirements are being financed in part through investments in organizations that profit from the detention and deportation of our neighbors.”

A handful of public pension funds are additionally invested in the same providing from Blackstone, known as Blackstone Infrastructure Companions. They embrace the New Mexico State Funding Council, the Orange County Workers’ Retirement System, Pennsylvania Public College Workers’ Retirement System, and the Instructor Retirement System of Texas, in response to the PitchBook information.

Blackstone didn’t reply to a request for remark, nor did the New Mexico State Funding Council. A spokesperson for the Instructor Retirement System of Texas declined to remark, citing a Texas legislation that prohibits discussing particular investments. The Orange County Workers’ Retirement System and Pennsylvania Public College Workers Retirement System equally declined to remark.

Azani Creeks, a senior marketing campaign and analysis coordinator at PESP, a nonprofit watchdog group targeted on the personal fairness trade, informed HuffPost that folks whose pensions depend on these investments are entitled to have a say of their composition.

“You can contact pension fund staff and trustees by email to schedule a meeting, and often, pension funds have regular meetings with public comment periods in which you can communicate your concerns,” Creeks mentioned.

“A handful of private equity firms, drawing on capital from pension funds, foundations, endowments, insurance companies, and other institutional investors, exert major influence through investments in companies providing services to immigrant detention facilities and migrant shelters around the United States.”

JJ in DC famous that in his work monitoring immigration flights, he’s been struck by simply how opaque the method is. The Division of Homeland Safety contracts with its primary dealer, CSI Aviation, which works with a community of subcontractors together with GlobalX, Avelo and Jap Air Categorical. These corporations in flip work with FBOs like Signature Aviation. Alongside the best way, airplanes have been made tougher to identify — with some shedding all of their exterior branding or being taken off public flight trackers, although their data continues to be obtainable on crowdsourced networks like ADS-B Alternate. (Anybody with the right receiver can contribute to the location, which presents location data broadcast by particular person plane over radio waves as an interactive and real-time, although not all the time full, map of world aviation visitors.)

The end result, in the long run, are taxpayer {dollars} quietly contributing to the portfolios of individuals like Gates and the Gates Basis Belief.

“This is a big pressure point,” JJ in DC informed HuffPost. “And if more people apply pressure, it’s going to hurt their operations, and they’re going to have to adjust.”

Matt Shuham reported from New York. Ryan Grenoble reported from Denver.