U.S. army plane carried out two deportation flights to Guatemala on Thursday night at about the identical time that the primary floor troops arrived on the southern border as a part of the Trump administration’s use of army troops to assist Customs and Border Safety personnel.
Each the White Home and the Pentagon are each prioritizing information in regards to the border mission, with the Pentagon permitting solely social media posts in regards to the mission over the subsequent 10 days whereas it carries out a worldwide refocus of its social media mission.
The primary of 1,500 Marine and Army personnel additionally started arriving on the border on Thursday night, with Marines close to San Diego arriving on the border wall with Mexico to put down extra concertina wire and put together for the arrival of extra troops.
That very same night, two U.S. Air Power C-17 plane took off from Davis-Monthan Air Power Base in Tucson, Arizona, and Biggs Military Airfield in El Paso, Texas, carrying roughly 80 deportees again to their dwelling nation of Guatemala.
U.S. Marines with 1st Fight Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, drive tactical autos alongside the southern border close to San Ysidro, California, Jan. 23, 2025.
U.S. Marine Corps picture by Cpl. Logan Courtright
About 1,000 U.S. Military personnel, largely army police models, from a wide range of U.S. Military bases are headed to areas in Texas to help CBP personnel, although it stays unclear what they are going to be doing as a part of the brand new mission.
The 1,500 troops is not going to be partaking in regulation enforcement duties, in line with a U.S. official, who additionally burdened the army personnel are solely being despatched to the border in assist of the Division of Homeland Safety and that they won’t have any interactions with migrants crossing the southern border.
The primary phrase of the C-17 deportation flights got here from the White Home’s X account. The primary official video footage of the Marines on the border in San Diego was additionally posted on that very same account later within the day.
The postings are a sign of how the Trump White Home is prioritizing information of the border mission and is reaching a big viewers by means of the scale of its social media accounts.
“Simply as he promised, President Trump is sending a robust message to the world: those that enter the US illegally will face critical penalties,” the official White Home mentioned.
Late on Friday, Joe Kasper, the Protection Division’s chief of workers, issued a memo that the Protection Division was suspending all of its social media postings worldwide for 10 days to refocus the division’s consideration on Trump’s key missions of “Conserving America Protected, fielding probably the most deadly pressure on the planet, and combating and profitable wars.”
However a notable exception was made for posts in regards to the army’s assist mission alongside the southern border, which he labeled “a high precedence” and notably implies that the one Protection Division social media posts for the subsequent 10 days shall be about operations alongside the border.
A U.S. Customs and Border Safety agent watches as unlawful aliens are loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster III at Tucson Worldwide Airport in Tucson, Ariz., Jan. 23, 2025.
Dept. of Protection picture by Senior Airman Devlin Bishop
The arrival of the C-17 flights in Guatemala have been open to the native press, which captured video and stills of the 160 deportees getting off the large army transports.
There aren’t any additional deportation flights scheduled for the close to future, mentioned a U.S. official, who famous that the tempo of the flights is determined by a wide range of elements — particularly the State Division having the ability to get diplomatic acceptance by the nation that shall be receiving again its nationals.
Usually, DHS makes use of contracted civilian plane to undertake deportation or removing flights to the deportees’ dwelling nations.
A spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command informed ABC Information that the 2 deportation flights have been the primary time that USTRANSCOM plane had been used for such a mission for the reason that army command was established in 1982. The command’s historian couldn’t say with confidence whether or not the Protection Division might have carried out such missions previous to that date.
Guatemalan migrants descend from an US army airplane after being deported from US on the Guatemalan Air Power Base in Guatemala Metropolis, Jan. 24, 2025.
Guatemalan Migration Institute/AFP through Getty Photos
The Nationwide Guard Bureau mentioned Thursday that it stands prepared to supply additional help to the border mission, the place 2,500 federalized Nationwide Guard members have been approved to supply a assist mission to CBP since late 2018 in the course of the first Trump administration.
U.S. protection officers mentioned Wednesday that they anticipated there may very well be extra requests for troops alongside the border.
“That is simply the beginning. That is an preliminary step, and we’re anticipating many additional missions,” a senior protection official informed reporters.
In anticipation of probably being known as upon to supply extra troopers, two U.S. officers informed ABC Information that the Military has preemptively positioned high-profile models such because the 82nd Airborne Division and the tenth Mountain Division on standby in case they’re wanted on quick discover.
Nonetheless, U.S. officers mentioned there isn’t a present planning for a near-term enlargement of the border mission as the main focus stays on guaranteeing that the 1,500 troops being despatched to the border are absolutely operational.
