TUCSON, AZ (AZFamily) — The White House said on Friday that deportation flights have begun, and some of those are happening in Tucson.
Photos posted from the Department of Defense show U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents loading up a C-17 GlobeMaster III at Tucson International Airport on Thursday night.
Dozens of people in the country were put on the plane, along with the water bottles and their belongings. The C-17 pilot then flew to Guatemala.
PHOTO GALLERY: U.S. Military assists Homeland Security with deportation operations
According to CBS News, the Tucson flight had 80 people and arrived around 7 a.m. in the Central American country.
The other flights were from El Paso, Texas.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so far this week, 538 people have been arrested for being in the country illegally and there have been 373 immigration detainers.
Early Friday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared photos on X, formally known as Twitter, of military flights being used for deportations.
“Deportation flights have begun. President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences,” she said.
Immigration attorney Darius Almiri said this is not a new thing.
“Deportations have happened as far back as I’ve been practicing law. It happened when Obama was president, President Biden, and they’ll happen under Trump,” Almiri said.
Although, he said he’s never seen military planes used before.
“Under previous administrations what happens is ICE transports the deportees back to their country of origin through commercial flights,” Almiri said. “I think the use of military Air Force jets that’s something different. That might be again, marketing.”
On Monday, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency for the southern border, which sent 1,500 active-duty troops to the border.
The Department of Defense said on Wednesday that it would provide military planes to help the Department of Homeland Security deport more than 5,000 undocumented immigrants from San Diego, California, and El Paso already detained by CBP.
“How someone typically gets involved in a deportation process is someone would be following an adverse criminal encounter so someone is undocumented status or DACA status and they get the police called on them for a disturbance or a DUI,” Almiri said. “If detained, they would go through the formal process of seeing an immigration judge.”
VIDEO GALLERY: Border Watch and Immigration in Arizona
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