US military aircraft deport migrants from Texas

DW (English)

The US has started deportation flights using Air Force planes. President Donald Trump also ordered 1,500 more military personnel to the border with Mexico. Since taking office, Trump has signed several executive orders on migration. DW's Benjamin Alvarez Gruber reports from El Paso, Texas.

Transcript

00:00We can cross live to DW's correspondent Benjamin Alvarez-Gruber.

00:04He's in the state of Texas, outside the military airbase Fort Bliss, where one of those deportation

00:09flights took off on Thursday.

00:12Benjamin, deportation flights aren't anything new.

00:15What is different about these ones, though?

00:21That's right.

00:22Deportation flights are not new.

00:23They happened during the previous administrations of Joe Biden, of Barack Obama.

00:27What's different now is that those are military cargo planes, so U.S. Air Force planes that

00:32are supporting DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, with these deportation flights.

00:38You just mentioned the plane and the flight that was confirmed that happened on Thursday

00:44evening with 80 migrants that were here regularly in the United States that were deported back

00:51on this cargo plane to Guatemala City.

00:54There is also another plane departure expected later on from San Diego, California.

01:00We also heard that there was one deportation flight conducted from Arizona.

01:06The White House press secretary said that the deportations have begun, but they have

01:11been happening.

01:12But that's the big difference.

01:13Now, usually, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, uses charter planes.

01:18So these are additional planes supporting those efforts and those promises that we also

01:22saw by President Trump with those executive orders, executive actions that were announced

01:29earlier this week.

01:30And the Department of Defense said that they will hand over these planes to support those

01:35efforts with more of these deportation flights also expected in the next couple of days.

01:42So is there more to come then?

01:44Are there any more flights of this kind expected?

01:50So we're still waiting of confirmation.

01:52There are many actors involved here.

01:55So we have DHS.

01:56We have Department of Homeland Security.

01:58We have also Customs and Border Protection and, of course, also the army that is involved

02:04with these deportation efforts.

02:05There will be flights, but they also are expected that there will be deportations by bus.

02:11Yesterday, we visited Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side, where authorities, local authorities

02:16are building up tents, where they expected thousands of people to arrive there.

02:20The big question will now be what will happen to those people and how the Mexican authorities

02:26will be able to help not only their nationals, but also people from other countries, from

02:31Venezuela, who might also need to wait there until they can cross to the United States.

02:38So there will be probably more information coming out there.

02:41What we heard from Customs and Border Protection is that there is not a limited time frame

02:45for these cargo airplanes to keep handing out and continuing with these deportation

02:51flights.

02:52Well, thank you so much for your reporting.

02:54That is DW's correspondent, Benjamin Alvarez-Gruber, reporting from Texas, near the border with

02:58Mexico.

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