Kristi Noem Wants to Spend Big Money on New Deportation Planes for ICE: Report

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wants to buy planes for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that would be dedicated to deporting as many migrants as possible, according to a new report from NBC News. And it seems extremely likely that she’ll get them, given the fact that recent legislation allocated billions in new funding for ICE.

Historically, ICE has used planes owned by private companies for deportation flights, chartering 8-14 planes at a time during President Joe Biden’s time in office, according to NBC News. Biden was deporting about 15,000 immigrants per month, less than half of the Trump regime’s rough goal.

The Trump regime deported somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 people in the first six months of Trump’s new term, but that seems to include people who “self-deported,” according to NBC News. It’s difficult to get accurate figures, and ICE didn’t respond to questions emailed on Wednesday. News of the possibility that Noem could procure planes for ICE comes as Wired has revealed phone searches at the U.S. border by CBP have soared to a record high.

The so-called Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law last month and includes $170 billion for immigration enforcement, including an additional $75 billion just for ICE. That money is allowing ICE to open up new detention facilities and hire new officers, many of whom are terrorizing communities across the U.S. right now. That also will hypothetically allow ICE to buy planes, which could cost anywhere from $80 million to $400 million each, depending on which airliners the agency chooses.

If ICE chooses to buy its own planes, the agency will be responsible for maintaining them, which will add additional costs. But Noem probably isn’t too worried about that, now that Republicans have given her what CBS News dubbed an “unprecedented level of funding.” The new ICE budget rivals the budgets of major militaries around the world.

Chartering planes was already expensive for ICE, at a cost of roughly $25,000 per hour, according to NBC, which covers the cost of things like pilots, flight attendants, security, and medical staff. But it will theoretically be even more expensive if ICE chooses to buy its own dedicated planes.

In another era, it was considered highly unusual for domestic law enforcement agencies to own their own planes. In fact, it was a major scandal when the FBI bought its first planes in the 1970s. The FBI bought two Lockheed YO-3As in 1974, which had been used as spy planes during the Vietnam War. And people were outraged, insisting the FBI didn’t need its own air force.

But we are well past an era when overreach by law enforcement was something that might get major pushback in the U.S. We live in a country that’s been taken over by literal fascists, and they are going to remake the nation in their image. The guardrails are gone, and sadistic punishment from far-right ideologues is the order of the day.