U.S. military aircraft carried out two deportation flights to Guatemala on Thursday evening at about the same time that the first ground troops arrived at the southern border as part of the Trump administration’s use of military troops to help Customs and Border Protection personnel.
Both the White House and the Pentagon are both prioritizing news about the border mission, with the Pentagon allowing only social media posts about the mission over the next 10 days while it carries out a worldwide refocus of its social media mission.
The first of 1,500 Marine and Army personnel also began arriving on the border on Thursday evening, with Marines near San Diego arriving at the border wall with Mexico to lay down additional concertina wire and prepare for the arrival of more troops.
That same evening, two U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft took off from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, and Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, carrying approximately 80 deportees back to their home country of Guatemala.
About 1,000 U.S. Army personnel, mostly military police units, from a variety of U.S. Army bases are headed to locations in Texas to assist CBP personnel, though it remains unclear what they will be doing as part of the new mission.
The 1,500 troops will not be engaging in law enforcement duties, according to a U.S. official, who also stressed the military personnel are only being sent to the border in support of the Department of Homeland Security and that they will not have any interactions with migrants crossing the southern border.
The first word of the C-17 deportation flights came from the White House’s X account. The first official video footage of the Marines at the border in San Diego was also posted on that same account later in the day.
The postings are an indication of how the Trump White House is prioritizing news of the border mission and is reaching a large audience through the size of its social media accounts.
“Just as he promised, President Trump is sending a strong message to the world: those who enter the United States illegally will face serious consequences,” the official White House said.
Late on Friday, Joe Kasper, the Defense Department’s chief of staff, issued a memo that the Defense Department was suspending all of its social media postings worldwide for 10 days to refocus the department’s attention on Trump’s key missions of “Keeping America Safe, fielding the most lethal force on the planet, and fighting and winning wars.”
But a notable exception was made for posts about the military’s support mission along the southern border, which he labeled “a top priority” and notably means that the only Defense Department social media posts for the next 10 days will be about operations along the border.
The arrival of the C-17 flights in Guatemala were open to the local press, which captured video and stills of the 160 deportees getting off the huge military transports.
There are no further deportation flights scheduled for the near future, said a U.S. official, who noted that the pace of the flights depends on a variety of factors — namely the State Department being able to get diplomatic acceptance by the country that will be receiving back its nationals.
Typically, DHS uses contracted civilian aircraft to undertake deportation or removal flights to the deportees’ home countries.
A spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command told ABC News that the two deportation flights were the first time that USTRANSCOM aircraft had been used for such a mission since the military command was established in 1982. The command’s historian could not say with confidence whether the Defense Department may have carried out such missions prior to that date.
The National Guard Bureau said Thursday that it stands ready to provide further assistance to the border mission, where 2,500 federalized National Guard members have been authorized to provide a support mission to CBP since late 2018 during the first Trump administration.
U.S. defense officials said Wednesday that they expected there could be additional requests for troops along the border.
“This is just the start. This is an initial step, and we are anticipating many further missions,” a senior defense official told reporters.
In anticipation of possibly being called upon to provide more soldiers, two U.S. officials told ABC News that the Army has preemptively placed high-profile units such as the 82nd Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division on standby in case they are needed on short notice.
However, U.S. officials said there is no current planning for a near-term expansion of the border mission as the focus remains on ensuring that the 1,500 troops being sent to the border are fully operational.
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