The Connecticut Treasurer’s office is scheduled to meet this week with one of its investment funds, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), to discuss its involvement in deportation flights run by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
GIP has received investments of approximately $400 million from the state’s pension fund over the past six years.
One of GIP’s funds is part owner of Signature Aviation, a fixed-base operator (FBO) which supports private charter flights – including those run by ICE - providing aviation services such as boarding stairs, fuel and aircraft maintenance.
Advocacy organization Ground ICE alleged in a letter to the Treasurer’s office that the work “includes functioning as the primary fuel supplier for ICE flights originating from Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA and at Newark Airport in NJ – the two airports through which detainees from Connecticut most commonly pass.”
Ground ICE is urging state officials to pressure Signature to reconsider its work with deportation flights.
The Office of the State Treasurer “[does] not control the management of specific investments within [GIP’s] portfolio,” Communications Director Brett Cody wrote in an email to CT Community News. However, he confirmed that pension fund officials are scheduled to meet Tuesday with GIP representatives to discuss the matter.
Investment history
In 2019, the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF), under then-State Treasurer Shawn Wooden, committed $200 million to GIP 4, administered by Global Infrastructure Partners, approximately 2.9% of the commitments to the $7 billion fund. In 2023, current Treasurer Erick Russell committed a further $200 million to GIP 5, making up 0.8% of the $25 billion fund.
GIP 4, in partnership with private equity firm Blackstone and with Cascade Investment, bought Signature Aviation in 2021 in a $4.73 billion deal.
Signature’s work with ICE predates GIP’s ownership. An ICE internal document from 2019 shows Signature Aviation listed as a designated FBO for ICE flights departing from and arriving in 12 major domestic airports in cities including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. It is unclear whether ICE still uses the airports on this list; however, reporting from other news media has documented Signature supporting ICE flights at several U.S. airports this year.
Signature has a base at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, but ICE is not known to have used that facility for deportation flights.
Signature Aviation and GIP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Flight support
The Office of the State Treasurer usually meets with GIP at least once every quarter, according to Cody. However, he said that the Tuesday meeting “was added specifically to discuss and understand the flight support.”
Russell will not be present at the meeting, with the pension fund management team leading it on his behalf.
Cody confirmed that the office received a letter from Ground ICE, an advocacy group concerned with Signature Aviation’s support for ICE flights. The group encouraged the office to meet with GIP to discuss the investment.
According to the letter, when asked about their involvement with ICE, Signature Aviation and GIP have previously asserted that the company has no contract with ICE but that it fuels aircraft from many different customers and has no way of differentiating ICE flights from those not affiliated with the agency.
Cody said that the primary goal of Tuesday’s meeting is to verify some of the information in the letter.
“We confirmed to the advocacy organization that we had already begun engagement with GIP on this subject, and that engagement is ongoing,” Cody wrote.
Record flight numbers
Ground ICE is not the only advocacy group closely monitoring this issue. Human Rights First, a nonpartisan organization founded in 1978, tracks flights with its newly implemented ICE Flight Monitor, which releases monthly reports.
According to the September 2025 report, the Trump administration has conducted almost 9,000 ICE flights between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30., with approximately 1,500 taking place in September alone — the highest monthly total the monitor has recorded in the last five years.
According to Savi Arvey, the director for research and analysis and refugee protection for Human Rights First, there are currently no ICE flights tracked flying into or out of Connecticut.
Guadalupe Gonzalez is the flight monitoring coordinator for La Resistencia, a grassroots group based in Washington state, directed by people who are personally affected by immigration enforcement.
“It’s our neighbors, it’s our close friends, it’s our family. I come from an immigrant background myself and it’s very much made me passionate about what’s going on,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez said La Resistencia has been tracking flights locally at King County International Airport in Seattle since May 2023 and has expanded its tracking efforts nationally as of May 2025. The organization tries to increase public awareness through flight monitoring releases such as their July 2025 report, which details Signature Aviation’s coordination with airport officials over ICE flights using documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
“We really intensified our efforts because under the new Trump Administration, we’ve seen the volume of flights triple,” he said.
Gonzalez said that without Signature Aviation and other FBOs being willing to work with ICE, deportation flights wouldn’t be able to enter and leave airports.
“These private companies have a big role, and it’s important that they’re addressed because they make it easier for ICE to escape culpability,” Gonzalez said. “But at the end of the day, we want to end detention. We believe that undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be subjected to such treatment, and we’re just against this whole incarceration system that’s ultimately being committed for profit.”
This story is republished via CT Community News, a service of the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, an organization sponsored by journalism departments at college and university campuses across the state.
