The Trump administration plans to end the use of military transport aircraft for deporting undocumented immigrants.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing a U.S. Department of Defense official, that starting on March 1, the administration will no longer use military planes for forced repatriations. As a result, a deportation flight scheduled for Thursday has been canceled.
Previously, U.S. federal authorities used military transport planes to transfer immigrants to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention facility as a stopover for deportations. Recently, over 200 undocumented Venezuelans were moved through Guantanamo before being sent back to their home country.
According to the WSJ‘s analysis of flight tracking data, approximately 30 deportation flights were conducted using C-17 transport planes, and about 12 flights used C-130 Hercules aircraft.
The WSJ pointed out that military aircraft were more expensive and transported fewer immigrants than commercial flights for deportations. For example, a single deportation flight to India cost $3 million, and in one instance, transporting just 12 immigrants to Guantanamo cost at least $20,000 per person.
Reuters previously reported that the operating cost of a C-17 transport plane is estimated at $28,500 per hour. This highlights that the cost of deporting each immigrant using military aircraft exceeds the price of a first-class ticket on a commercial airline.