More than 80 illegal migrants nabbed under President Trump’s border crackdown were recently loaded onto a C-17 military plane in El Paso, Texas, for a one-way flight back to Ecuador.
Fox News got access to the repatriation flight, which took off from Biggs Army Airfield late Tuesday morning carrying 43 women and 37 men, including several families.
“The take-home message here is, ‘not today, not today, not tomorrow, not next week,’” US Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Hamid Nikseresht told the outlet.
“Do not come to the United States and enter illegally.”
Border Patrol officials said the passengers were in the US illegally and had been nabbed between ports of entry checkpoints, smuggling operations or stash houses, according to Fox News reported.
One of Trump’s first actions upon taking office was declaring a national emergency at the southern US border, opening the door for the federal government to marshal additional military resources to address the crisis.
On top of deploying an additional 1,500 troops, the Department of Defense is also providing airlift support for Department of Homeland Security-operated flights, including the one Fox News was granted access to.
The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, developed for the US Air Force in the 1980s and 1990s by McDonnell Douglas, is frequently relied upon for tactical and strategic airlift missions — helping ferry troops and cargo where it’s needed around the globe.
Customs and Border Protection told the outlet that the plane is a major asset to swiftly getting illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin.
“With the support of our Department of Defense partners, we’re sending the message that if it takes you 30, 60 or 90 days in some cases, to come to the United States illegally, enter once you’re found amenable to removal under Title 8, we can have you back in your home country within seven hours,” Nikseresht said.
“That puts you pretty much anywhere in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and anywhere in between.”
Some of the flight crew on the Ecuador-bound C-17 flight were on the flights transporting illegal migrants to Colombia but were briefly turned away by President Gustavo Petro.
However Petro quickly changed his tune once Trump slapped a 25% tariff on goods imported to the US from the South American country — even promising they would jump to 50% in a week.
The US Embassy in Ecuador on Wednesday morning shared photos on X of the flight arriving and the migrants exiting the aircraft under the watchful eye of US Army personnel, with family members greeting them by a bus parked on the airport tarmac.
“We are firm in our commitment to ending illegal migration and strengthening US border security,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the embassy’s post.
