Jan. 24 (UPI) — This week, U.S. military and police forces began the first deportation flights for illegal immigrants under President Donald Trump‘s hardline immigration crackdown nationwide and particularly at the southern border. A large military C-17 Globemaster III aircraft assigned to the 60th Air Mobility Wing took off from Fort Bliss, Texas, on Thursday. The airlift was directed by the U.S. Northern Command’s U.S. Transportation Command.
A report in Air & Space Forces Magazine said that, while one C-17 took off from Biggs Army Air Field in Texas, another C-17 took off from Tucson, Ariz., on the same evening. The aircraft were headed to Guatemala, officials told the publication.
Similar flights are to be expected. This week’s action at the southern border came as reports also revealed that the Trump administration was considering sending thousands of active-duty troops to the southern border to address illegal immigration issues, according to an internal memo viewed by journalists.
About 10,000 troops were being considered for missions at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to one source.
Earlier this week, Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses released a statement on his department’s “Actions Responding to President Trump’s Executive Order on Securing our Border.”
In it, he said the Defense Department would provide military airlift to “support DHS deportation flights of more than five thousand illegal aliens from the San Diego, Calif., and El Paso, Texas, sectors detained by Customs and Border Protection.”
He said DHS would provide “inflight” law enforcement, as well.