‘Strong and clear message’: Illegal aliens deportation flights begin
“Deportation flights have begun,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X Friday morning above two photos of a line of illegal alien men preparing to board a large military plane.
“President [Donald] 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,” Leavitt said.
The aircraft, according to Fox News national correspondent Brooke Taylor, holds 80 people and departed from Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, for Guatemala.
The report of the early morning flights come one day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 538 illegal immigrants, all criminals according to the White House press secretary.
Among those ICE arrest Thursday were “a suspected terrorist, four members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and several illegals convicted of sex crimes against minors,” Leavitt wrote on X.
Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin embedded with ICE in Boston this week as agent carried out arrests of illegal aliens. Among those arrested, according to Melugin, include “two MS-13 gang members … [a] Haitian gang member [with] 17 convictions, multiple alleged rapists, including one who held a gun in woman’s mouth during the crime.”
Video captured the moment the Haitian gang member was arrested in Boston, as the man yelled, “F–k Trump, you feel me? Joe Biden forever, bro. Thank [President Barack] Obama for everything he did for me, bro.”
Also among those arrest in Boston was a Dominican charged with heroin trafficking and assault with a dangerous weapon, according to Melugin. A “Salvadoran man charged [with] rape [and a] Haitian man charged [with] sexual assault” were also arrested.
The arrests make good on Trump administration border czar Tom Homan’s pledge to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens first.
“Day One, [Jan.] 21. ICE agents will be out doing their job,” Homan told The Daily Signal during an interview in January.
“We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE and put them on the bad guys,” Homan said. “And we’ve been real clear that right out of the gate we’re concentrating on public safety threats and security threats, but no one’s off the table. If … you’re in the United States illegal, you got a problem. But we realize that we got to do the worst first and that’s what we’re going to do.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]