U.S. Suspends Costly Deportation Flights Using Military Aircraft
Trump administration had used C-17s to fly migrants abroad and to Guantanamo Bay
March 5, 2025
The Trump administration has stopped using military aircraft to fly migrants who entered the U.S. illegally to Guantanamo Bay or other countries, defense officials said.
President Trump has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a focus of his second term. But using military aircraft to transport some migrants to their home countries or to a military base at Guantanamo Bay has proved expensive and inefficient, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The last military deportation flight was March 1, officials said. The Pentagon said Tuesday that no such flights were scheduled for the next 48 hours. A flight scheduled for Thursday was canceled, a defense official said. The pause on such flights could be extended or made permanent, officials said.
Soon after Trump took office in January, his administration began using military aircraft for flights traditionally handled by the Department of Homeland Security to transfer some migrants to other countries and to U.S. military facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration wanted the military flights to send a message about their intent to get tough on immigrants in the country illegally, defense officials said.
“The message is clear: If you break the law, if you are a criminal, you can find your way at Guantanamo Bay,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week after watching migrants arrive on a C-130 aircraft during a visit to Guantanamo Bay. “You don’t want to be at Guantanamo Bay.”
The Trump administration has conducted roughly 30 migrant flights using C-17 aircraft and about a dozen on C-130, according to flight-tracking data. Destinations included India, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Panama and Guantanamo Bay.
But the military flights have taken longer routes and transported fewer migrants at higher cost to taxpayers than the government’s typical deportation flights on civilian aircraft, the Journal found.
Three deportation flights to India cost $3 million each. Some flights carried a dozen people to Guantanamo at a cost of at least $20,000 per migrant, the Journal’s analysis showed.
A standard U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flight costs $8,500 per flight hour, according to a government webpage. Former ICE officials told the Journal the figure is closer to $17,000 per flight hour for international trips.
It costs $28,500 per hour to fly a C-17, which is designed to carry heavy cargo and troops, according to U.S. Transportation Command, which provided the aircraft.
Adding to costs, the C-17s haven’t been using Mexico’s airspace, which can add several hours to flights destined for Central and South America. Mexico and some other countries in Latin America haven’t allowed the military flights to land and have instead sent their own aircraft or arranged for deportees to travel on commercial flights.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro in January denied entry to two C-17 flights, prompting Trump to threaten tariffs. Hours later, the White House said Colombia had agreed to the “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens,” including on U.S. military aircraft. But no C-17s have landed in the country. Instead, Colombia sent its own aircraft to transport deported Colombians.
Venezuela in February sent two commercial flights to pick up 190 people, ending years or refusals to accept deported citizens who had entered the U.S. illegally.
Write to Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com