WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s military deportation flight to Guatemala on Monday (Jan 27) seemingly value a minimum of US$4,675 per migrant, in response to information offered by US and Guatemalan officers.
That’s greater than 5 occasions the US$853 value of a one-way firstclass ticket on American Airways from El Paso, Texas, the departure level for the flight, in response to a evaluate of publicly obtainable airfares.
It is usually considerably greater than the price of a business constitution flight by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Trump launched the army deportation flights final week as a part of his national emergency declaration on immigration, to date sending six planeloads of migrants on flights to Latin America.
Solely 4 have landed, all of them in Guatemala, after Colombia refused to let two US C-17 cargo aircraft land and as a substitute despatched its personal planes to gather migrants following a standoff with Trump.
A US official, chatting with Reuters on situation of anonymity, estimated the fee to function a C-17 army transport plane is US$28,500 per hour. The flight forwards and backwards to Guatemala, not together with time on the bottom or any operations to arrange the flight for takeoff, took about 10-1/2 hours within the air to finish, the official mentioned.
A Guatemalan official instructed Reuters the army transport aircraft landed on Monday with 64 individuals on board.
The Pentagon didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Trump, talking at his Doral golf membership to Republican lawmakers on Monday, vowed his unprecedented use of army plane for deportations would proceed and any nations that refuse will “pay a excessive financial value”.
“For the primary time in historical past, we’re finding and loading unlawful aliens into army plane and flying them again to the locations from which they got here,” Trump mentioned to applause.
“We’re revered once more, after years of laughing at us like we’re silly individuals.”
