The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has quietly taken a big step toward building its own dedicated deportation fleet. With a new contract worth nearly $140 million, DHS will purchase a small fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft that will be used for removal flights, funded by a huge budget increase for immigration enforcement recently approved by Congress.
This spending comes out of roughly $170 billion that Congress authorized over four years for President Trump’s border and immigration agenda as part of the GOP tax bill earlier this year. The officials who spoke about the deal did so anonymously, noting that details had not yet been publicly disclosed.
But Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, later confirmed the news and clarified that the air fleet would save money “by allowing ICE to operate more effectively, including by using more efficient flight patterns.”
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