A White House spokesperson announced Friday that the Trump administration had begun flying illegal immigrants out of the U.S. using military aircraft.
Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, shared photos on social media platform X of people in handcuffs boarding a plane. “Deportation flights are underway,” Leavitt stated, “President Trump sends a clear and strong message to the world: If you enter the United States of America illegally, you will suffer severe consequences.”
Trump’s executive order, signed this week by the president, has led to the use of military aircraft for deportation. However, deportation flights have been around for a long time.
Immigration advocates mocked the White House’s series of social media postings, noting that deportation flight flights are ongoing.
Aaron Reichlin Melnick, a senior Fellow with the American Immigration Council wrote on X: “Are they seriously attempting to suggest that the deportation flight has not been taking place?”
“They’re lying to you. The Biden administration had already ramped up deportations from the border to a higher level than it was under the Trump admin.”
Trump’s top priority in the campaign for 2024 was to crack down on immigration. Administration officials have aggressively marketed any actions taken in that regard in Trump’s first few days as president.
On his first day as president, the President took several executive actions to reduce the flow of migrants into the United States. Trump has halted refugee admissions and declared a state of emergency along the southern border. He also increased U.S. Military presence.
Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has also authorized agents to make arrests in sensitive locations, including schools, churches, and businesses. This reverses a Biden Administration rule that prohibited arrests from taking place in “sensitive areas.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced that it had made 373 detainers and 538 arrests by Thursday night.
“I said from Day 1, no one’s off the table. If you’re in the United States illegally, you got a problem, but we’re focusing on public safety threats first,” Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told NewsNation on Thursday.
But those figures also are not a big departure from what Biden was doing. Reichlin Melnick said that the Trump administration “slapped a mass deportation sticker on the side” of the normal ICE operations.
Backlash has been a result of the increased action.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, (D-N.J.), accused ICE late Thursday of conducting an unconstitutional raid in Newark, N.J. Local officials claimed that agents detained U.S. and foreign citizens without producing a search warrant.
