Royal Ontario Museum board director steps down after links to deportation flights surface

The director of the Royal Ontario Museum's (ROM) board of governors has stepped down after Canada's National Observer asked about his business’ links to deportation flights by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Caitlin Coull, the vice-president of communications for the museum's Board of Governors, confirmed in an email Wednesday that Christopher W. Jamroz has left his role with the board. Jamroz remains on the museum's list of honorary trustees, but the page listing his bio and photo have been removed from the ROM website. Jamroz joined the board in 2010, according to a news release at the time, and later donated $1 million to the museum.

 The links were initially reported by independent journalist Rachel Gilmore.

Jamroz states on his website that he "has been a tenured mentor to students at Schulich School of Business" at York University.  

Yanni Dagonas, advisor and deputy spokesperson at York University wrote in an email the university can "confirm that Mr. Jamroz is not and was never employed by the York University Schulich School of Business in any capacity. He does not have any current relationship with the university." He added that he cannot speak to the term "tenured mentor" Jamroz uses on his website and that it "is not one that is used at York," but that Jamroz was "a mentor, a volunteer position, but not for several years."  

Jamroz is the executive chairman of GlobalX, a Miami-based charter airline that operates across the US, Caribbean, Europe and Latin America. Last year, 74 per cent of ICE's 1,564 deportation flights were on GlobalX planes, according to data collected by Tom Cartwright, an immigration activist. 

CSI Aviation, ICE's main aviation contractor who subcontracts to GlobalX, received in February a contract worth up to $151 million for "the deportation of aliens placed in federal custody." 

On March 15, ICE used three Global X flights to deport, without a hearing, more than 238 foreign nationals the Trump administration alleges belong to the Tren de Aragua gang and 23 alleged members of the MS-13 gang to El Salvador and Honduras. Those flights have become a touchstone of the controversy surrounding the administration's approach to immigration.

Judge James E. Boasbag of the Federal Court of Washington issued a court order blocking the flights, but whether the order was issued in time is being debated by the government. The Trump administration has cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the removals without giving the alleged gang members a hearing.