A man in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody was mistakenly placed on the wrong Alaska Airlines flight out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in May 2025, an incident that has only now been reported following an investigation by The Seattle Times.
Rakesh Rakesh, detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, was supposed to fly to New York City en route to India under a voluntary departure order. Instead, ICE officers escorted him onto a flight bound for Sitka, Alaska.
Alaska Airlines said its staff were not notified in advance and standard coordination procedures with ICE were not followed. Flight attendants alerted officers to the mistake, but boarding proceeded anyway, the airline said.
After the error was discovered, Rakesh was rerouted and eventually completed his departure, though the disruption added more than two weeks to his detention before he reached India.
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