The Defense Department plans to use U.S. Air Force C-17s and C-130s to deport thousands of migrants, one aspect of the military‘s plan to carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Those aircraft, along with their aircrew and a handful of other personnel, will deploy to El Paso, Texas, and San Diego. These crews are in addition to, not included in, the roughly 1,000 Army soldiers and 500 Marines who were deployed Wednesday to the southern border, acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said in a statement.
The 1,500 troops heading to the border will join roughly 2,500 troops already there, bringing the number of military personnel to roughly 4,000, and there is an expectation that more will be deployed there in the coming weeks and months.
“Right now, we also anticipate that there could be some additional airborne intelligence surveillance support assets that would move down to the border to increase situational awareness,” a senior military official told reporters.
Salesses also said in a statement that it was “just the beginning.”
The roughly 1,500 recently deployed troops will assist in the construction of physical barriers to increase security. The Pentagon also deployed UH-72 Lakota helicopters with associated crews and intelligence analysts to support increased detection and monitoring efforts.
Trump signed a flurry of executive orders focusing on securing the border and deportations during his first hours back in the White House, including declaring a national emergency. He signed one commanding U.S. Northern Command to “seal the borders” by “repelling forms of invasion.”
U.S. troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act. However, the president argued in the executive order that their use is justified because he has declared a border emergency to stop “forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
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The 500 Marines were on active standby for possible deployment to aid in the California wildfire containment efforts but were not called up, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency released them from their assignment last weekend.
Salesses and acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman are leading the effort for now until the Senate confirms Trump’s nominees, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem, respectively. The State Department is also involved in the process, specifically in figuring out which countries will accept the planes of migrants.