Trump admin considering using defense funding for deportations
Tapping into DoD funding to hire contractors would vastly expand the scale and scope of immigrant arrests and deportations in the U.S.
The Trump administration is considering tapping into Defense Department funding to hire contractors, a move that would vastly expand the scale and scope of immigrant arrests and deportations in the U.S., according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The defense contracts would allow civilian-run companies to quickly and rapidly expand temporary detention facilities, such as those that house migrants in tents, as well as to staff those facilities and provide transportation between arrest locations and detention areas. Such a move could also increase the number of airplanes available used to deport immigrants, as well as staff for the flights, the sources said.
Border czar Tom Homan has already tapped agents from the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and others to help support Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in making immigrant arrests. But the pace of arrests and deportations has failed to meet Homan’s expectations, and President Donald Trump’s.
NBC News previously reported that Trump, who promised to deport “millions and millions” in his inaugural address and made mass deportations a key campaign promise, has recently been “angry” with what he sees as a low number of migrants being deported. And the two top officials in ICE’s enforcement division were recently demoted and reassigned, three separate sources familiar told NBC News.
Asked for comment on this article, the Pentagon deferred to the White House. Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said, "The Trump administration is committed to delivering on the mandate that the American people gave to President Trump with a whole-of-government approach to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and put America First."
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