Coast Guard C-130 aircraft conduct deportation flights on Feb. 2, 2025, between California and Texas. ((U.S. Coast Guard) )
The Coast Guard is conducting regional flights to shuttle migrants to expulsion hubs where Air Force cargo planes await to remove them from the United States.
In the past two weeks, the Coast Guard has conducted at least seven C-130 Hercules flights that spanned California, Texas and Washington state, according to the service. The long-range cargo planes take the migrants to designated locations in the U.S. where they are transferred onto Air Force C-17 and C-130 aircraft for international flights to their original countries or ones willing to accept them.
Photos released by the Coast Guard show passenger vans and buses parked on a San Diego airfield with white and orange C-130s in the foreground. In one photo, about 50 individuals are lined up to board a Coast Guard plane.
“Through these ongoing operations, the Coast Guard is detecting, deterring and interdicting aliens, drug smugglers and individuals intent on terrorism or other hostile activity before they reach our border,” the Coast Guard said Tuesday in its most recent release.
The flights were first announced by the Coast Guard on Jan. 25 — four days after Adm. Linda Fagan was fired by the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security from her role as commandant of the service. A senior department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Fagan was fired because she failed to address border security, as well as for the mishandling of recruiting, acquisitions and a sexual assault scandal.
Coast Guard conducts deportation flight on Jan. 25, 2025, between California and Texas in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. (U.S. Coast Guard)
Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting Coast Guard commandant, immediately released a statement to send personnel and assets to the southwest maritime border with Mexico. The decision to surge assets to maritime borders was in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order to crackdown on illegal immigration.
Aircraft and crew sent to the border have come from as far away as Coast Guard air stations Elizabeth City, N.C., and Kodiak, Alaska, based on photos released by the Coast Guard. The domestic Coast Guard flights are led by the Eleventh Coast Guard District in California.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Tuesday while traveling in Germany that the crackdown on immigration was meant to address what he called the biggest threat to the U.S. right now.
“You don’t have a country if you don’t have borders, as the president has pointed out,” he said. “We have been defending other people’s borders for a long time. [It’s] time to defend ours.”
As of Feb. 10, Air Force aircraft from various units had flown 18 deportation flights to locations including Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Peru and Guantanamo Bay, according to a defense official with the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for providing the military flights.
The official was unable to specify the units’ home bases, citing security concerns. But photos captured Feb. 5 by a Reuters photographer show a C-17 cargo plane from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., conducted at least one international deportation flight. Photos shared Jan. 27 to the Air Force’s X account also show migrants on a Lewis-McChord-based C-17.
Lewis-McChord is home to the 62nd Airlift Wing, which has a fleet of 40 C-17 cargo planes. The Army shared to social media on Jan. 27 that the air wing transported 110 military police from the base to Fort Bliss, Texas, to assist border patrol agents. The Air Force’s 60th Air Mobility Wing also has aircraft operating in and out of Fort Bliss, deploying to Texas from Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Fort Bliss is acting as a deportation hub.
The Department of Homeland Security said 5,693 people had been deported as of Feb. 3. They are from 121 countries.
“High-threat” migrants are being transported to Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The Defense Department has said migrants will be held there temporarily until they can be deported back to their country of origin.
Near-daily deportation flights carrying migrants to Guantanamo have occurred since Feb. 4, when the first flight landed, according to U.S. Transportation Command’s X account. The command referred questions about how many migrants were transported to each location to the Department of Homeland Security.
