Indian Illegal Immigrants in US: A United States military plane carrying deported Indian migrants is on the way to India. The C-17 aircraft carrying 205 Indian nationals departed from San Antonio, Texas, around 3 am IST on Tuesday (February 4). US President Donald Trump won the recent election on the plank of cracking down on illegal immigration, and has been vigorously pursuing this ever since he took office. Illegal immigrants are being deported by the planeload, including, significantly, on military planes.
The use of military planes for deportation is unusual in the US, it is also very expensive. Recently, Colombia had refused to let a military flight carrying deportees land, with President Gustavo Petro saying he would only accept civilian planes.
Why, then, is the Trump administration persisting with them? How much does one deportation flight on a military plane cost?
The cost of a military vs civilian deportation plane
The US usually carries out deportations on commercial charters that look like regular commercial planes, and are operated by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). While these planes are still ferrying illegal immigrants out, they have received less attention than the huge, imposing military C-17s.
Reuters has calculated the comparative cost of the two planes. A recent military deportation flight to Guatemala, it said, “likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant…That is more than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket on American Airlines” on the same route.
About ICE flights, Reuters said, “…acting ICE Director Tae Johnson told lawmakers during an April 2023 budget hearing that deportation flights cost $17,000 per flight hour for 135 deportees and typically lasted five hours.”
This would “translate to a cost of $630 per person, assuming the charter company, and not ICE, pays the cost of the return flight.”
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The estimated cost to operate a C-17 military transport aircraft is $28,500 per hour, the same report said. The deportation flight to India is the longest yet. So far, such flights have gone to Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, and Ecuador. A military plane had flown for Colombia too, but the country sent its own planes to bring back the immigrants.
Why does Trump want to use military planes for deportation, then?
It has to do with symbolism. Trump has frequently termed illegal immigrants “aliens” and “criminals” who have “invaded” America. The visuals of immigrants being loaded onto military planes seems to be part of the message that Trump is tough on such “crimes”. Shackling and handcuffing the immigrants as they are loaded into planes also seems in line with this.
Recently, speaking to Republican lawmakers, Trump said, “For the first time in history, we are locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came…We’re respected again, after years of laughing at us like we’re stupid people.”
On January 24, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted pictures of handcuffed migrants tied together and walking towards a military plane on X. Her post read, “Deportation flights have begun. President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences.”
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Trump is also in favour of deporting illegal immigrants quickly, instead of detaining them and giving them time to appeal. “I don’t want them sitting in camp for the next 20 years. I want them out, and the countries have got to take them back,” he said in December.
The visual of migrants being sent back shackled on military planes, however, is a sensitive issue for home countries, specially in Latin America. As The New York Times said in a recent article, “The US military has a particular resonance in Latin America, experts say, especially for leftist leaders like Petro and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. They remember a time when the United States carried out covert US military operations in the region as part of an effort to subdue revolutionary movements in the name of defeating communism.
The presence of the US military can also threaten the notion of national sovereignty in countries like Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has said: “They can act within their borders. When it comes to Mexico, we defend our sovereignty and seek out dialogue so as to coordinate.””
