Trump administration considering using defense funding to ramp up deportations

The Trump administration is considering tapping into Defense Department funding to hire contractors, a move that would vastly expand the scale and scope of immigrant arrests and deportations in the U.S., according to three sources familiar with the matter. 

The defense contracts would allow civilian-run companies to quickly and rapidly expand temporary detention facilities, such as those that house migrants in tents, as well as to staff those facilities and provide transportation between arrest locations and detention areas. Such a move could also increase the number of airplanes available used to deport immigrants, as well as staff for the flights, the sources said.

Border czar Tom Homan has already tapped agents from the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and others to help support Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in making immigrant arrests. But the pace of arrests and deportations has failed to meet Homan’s expectations, and President Donald Trump’s.

NBC News previously reported that Trump, who promised to deport “millions and millions” in his inaugural address and made mass deportations a key campaign promise, has recently been “angry” with what he sees as a low number of migrants being deported. And the two top officials in ICE’s enforcement division were recently demoted and reassigned, three separate sources familiar told NBC News.

Asked for comment on this article, the Pentagon deferred to the White House. Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said, "The Trump administration is committed to delivering on the mandate that the American people gave to President Trump with a whole-of-government approach to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and put America First."

One factor has been ICE’s budget. The agency was already facing a shortfall even before the Trump administration came into office and began its deportation push.

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The low numbers are in large part due to space. Congress has only given ICE the funding for roughly 40,000 beds to hold detained immigrants at any one time. It can work with private prison companies that can provide more space, but ICE is still limited by what it can afford to pay those companies to expand detention space until Congress acts, if it does. 

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With Defense Department funding, however, the amount of money available for detention would expand greatly. The three sources familiar with the planning say the Trump administration is exploring what are known as LOGCAP contracts, or Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, which allow the Pentagon to quickly issue contracts to support logistics of any operation.

The administration could face legal challenges over using LOGCAP contracts to fund immigration enforcement. The sources familiar with the planning said Trump would use the Alien and Sedition Acts and his declaration of a national emergency at the U.S. southern border as justification for accessing the contracts.