DHS Just Filed Papers to Build a Deportation Airline No Activist Can Ground

President Trump's Homeland Security Department just filed paperwork to build its own deportation airline.

Nine government-owned jets would fly deportation missions morning, noon, and night without asking anyone's permission.

The fleet is built specifically so no boycott, protest, or activist campaign can ever ground it again.

DHS Is Building a Nine-Jet Deportation Airline From Scratch

DHS is asking aviation companies to propose how they would operate and maintain a fleet built for deportation missions.

Two of the jets would be C-37Bs, the military's designation for Gulfstream 650ER equivalents, and the other seven would be Boeing 737-700s or similar aircraft.

The winning contractor would staff the flights with pilots and flight attendants, plus security and medical personnel when the mission calls for it.

Those same planes would also carry crisis response teams and handle medical evacuations whenever they aren't flying deportation or voluntary repatriation missions.

DHS has already spent roughly $140 million on its first fleet of Gulfstreams and Boeing 737s, work that started under former Secretary Kristi Noem before this month's contractor search was even announced.

ICE has been busy while the planes were being lined up.

The agency detained 10,000 people over a single five-day stretch at the end of June.

DHS says the surge is delivering on the president's core campaign promise.

The department didn't soften the message about what comes next.

"We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you," the statement said.

Why the Government Wants Planes No Boycott Can Touch

DHS didn't build this fleet in a vacuum.

The year before, budget carrier Avelo Airlines had signed a deal to charter deportation flights for ICE out of Mesa, Arizona.

Left-wing activists ran a campaign to damage the airline's reputation and talk customers out of flying with it.

Less than a year later, Avelo CEO Andrew Levy caved.

Levy admitted the ICE contract had "placed us in the center of a political controversy."

Activist groups declared victory and made no secret they wanted the same playbook to work on Congress next.

A government-owned jet has no commercial brand to protect and no consumer boycott to fear.

The planes DHS is buying answer to nobody but the department that owns them outright.

Analysis

The activists who forced Avelo out of the deportation business won a battle and handed DHS the blueprint for winning the war.

Every pressure point that worked against a private airline – brand reputation, shareholder anxiety, a CEO who cared what critics thought of him – disappears the moment the government owns the planes itself.

Levy folded because he had passengers to keep and a board to answer to.

DHS has neither, and that's precisely the point of building an in-house fleet instead of renewing another charter contract.

A Harvard-Harris poll released last month found 56 percent of Americans support deporting every illegal immigrant in the country, with support climbing to 77 percent among Republicans and a majority among independents.

That's the audience this fleet is built for, and it isn't shrinking no matter how many airports get picketed.

The next protest outside a terminal won't be aimed at an airline that can be talked out of a contract.

It will be aimed at a runway the government owns outright, with nobody left to boycott.

Sources:

• Jack Davis, "Trump Admin Building Own Fleet of Deportation Planes to Operate 24/7," The Western Journal, July 13, 2026.
• Ben Kew, "Budget Airline Cancels Its Deportation Contract With ICE, Citing 'Political Controversy'," The Gateway Pundit, January 8, 2026.
• C. Douglas Golden, "New Poll: Majority of Americans Want Every Illegal Immigrant Deported," The Western Journal, June 11, 2026.
• Joseph Chalfant, "DHS Creates 'Deportation Airline' to Carry-Out 24/7 Deportation Flights," Townhall, July 11, 2026.