No, a Southwest Airlines Flight Was Not Diverted for an ICE Raid
By Sam Howard
What happened: Liberal social media users are falsely claiming that a Southwest Airlines flight was diverted to Nashville International Airport so that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents could raid the airplane.
Context: On June 2, a Southwest Airlines flight from New York to Dallas was diverted to Nashville, according to a statement issued by the airline.
A closer look: The next day, social media users shared a video that supposedly was from the flight, showing what appeared to be law enforcement officers escorting a hooded passenger off the plane. The plane featured the Southwest Airlines logo.
You can watch the video here:
A post from liberal Facebook page “NY Individisible / Empire Must Fall” included the video with the caption: “A @southwestair flight was reportedly diverted from Houston [sic] to Nashville under the excuse of needing to refuel but passengers soon learned it was actually for an 🧊raid. … This is how cruelty gets normalized: one ‘fuel stop’ at a time.” The post received 109,000 views and 950 likes in two days.
While many posts advancing the claim came from progressives decrying ICE’s supposed involvement, others came from conservatives praising the agency’s purported actions.
Lauren Witzke, a producer for the 2022 anti-vax documentary “Died Suddenly,” stated in a June 3 X post: “A Southwest flight headed to Dallas was reportedly rerouted midflight to Nashville for an ICE raid…. Kudos to these ICE officers for going above and beyond to ensure that invader never reached their destination.” Witzke’s post received between 1 million and 1.1 million views and 5,400 likes in two days.
Actually: Asked about the diverted flight, Southwest Airlines spokesman Lynn Lunsford told NewsGuard in a June 4 email, “This was not an ICE raid,” adding that the plane was diverted “to address a possible security matter.” Lunsford declined to elaborate, saying, “As a matter of policy, we do not discuss security.”
Nick Beres, a reporter for Nashville TV station WTVF, said in a June 2 Facebook post that the diversion of the flight was due to a bomb threat. He added: “All of the passengers de-planed and baggage was removed to be checked again and the entire plane was swept for explosives. Nothing was found.” Beres’ Facebook post did not mention ICE.
Beres also reported, “I’m told the wife of one of the passengers called in the threat to say her husband had a bomb.” The husband was “initially taken into custody in Nashville” and the FBI met with the unnamed woman, who was “expected to face federal charges,” Beres said. In an email exchange with NewsGuard, FBI Nashville public affairs officer Elizabeth Clement-Webb declined to comment on the incident or whether charges were filed. “As a matter of policy, the FBI can’t confirm or deny investigations,” she said in a June 9 email.
It is not clear whether the video cited above supposedly depicting an ICE raid in fact captured authorities removing the man whose wife allegedly caused the bomb scare.
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