By Shelby Holliday and Nancy A. Youssef
The Trump administration has stopped using military aircraft to fly migrants who entered the U.S. illegally to Guantanamo Bay or other countries, defense officials said.
President Trump has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a focus of his second term. But using military aircraft to transport some migrants to their home countries or to a military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has proved expensive and inefficient, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The last military deportation flight was March 1, officials said. The Pentagon said Tuesday that no such flights were scheduled for the next 48 hours. A flight scheduled for Thursday was canceled, a defense official said. The pause on such flights could be extended or made permanent, officials said.
Soon after Trump took office in January, his administration began using military aircraft for flights traditionally handled by the Department of Homeland Security to transfer some migrants to other countries and to U.S. military facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The administration wanted the military flights to send a message about its intent to get tough on immigrants in the country illegally, defense officials said.
“The message is clear: If you break the law, if you are a criminal, you can find your way at Guantanamo Bay,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week after watching migrants arrive on a C-130 aircraft during a visit to Guantanamo Bay. “You don’t want to be at Guantanamo Bay.”
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