The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the United States announced this Saturday that deportation flights have reached historic highs under the administration of President Donald Trump, supporting its statement in a report from Washington Examiner revealing that in May 2026, nearly 300 flights of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) departed, the highest monthly figure since Trump took office in January 2025.
That figure represents more than double the 126 flights recorded in the first full month of the administration, according to data from the ICE Flight Monitor project by Human Rights First, a human rights advocacy organization based in Washington.
Since January 2025, the government has conducted approximately 3,000 deportation flights in total, and a DHS spokesperson reported that nearly 900,000 immigrants have been removed from the country during that time.
On its official account on X, the DHS published a direct message: "The American people have mandated us to arrest and expel illegal criminal immigrants from our country, and under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, we will continue to fulfill that mandate. Our message is clear: LEAVE NOW or we will find you, arrest you, and deport you."
The DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin, is pointed out alongside Trump as responsible for the policy that has tripled the rate of deportations compared to the last months of the Biden administration, when there were between 100 and 200 outbound flights per month.
Central America accounts for between 40% and 60% of all deportation flights each month, followed by interior Mexico and South America.
The Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia also receive dozens of flights each month, while Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania have less frequent operations.
In addition to international flights, in May, approximately 1,300 domestic flights were carried out by the ICE to transport detainees between detention centers in various regions of the country, a number that increased from about 250 monthly flights in 2024 to over 1,000 in 2026.
The DHS also claims that 2.2 million people have "self-deported" or left voluntarily since January 2025, partly due to the CBP Home app, which offers a free plane ticket and incentives of up to $2,600.
However, that figure was challenged by Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies: "I think they are exaggerating what they're doing," he said, noting that the actual number of those who used the app to leave voluntarily is probably only a few thousand.
For the Cuban community, the impact is significant. Arrests of Cuban migrants by ICE increased by 463% between late 2024 and early 2026.
In the first five months of this year, 612 Cubans have already been deported in 18 operations with direct flights to Havana, a number that adds to the 1,370 deported during all of 2025.
Human Rights Watch warned that the expansion of ICE Air operations has occurred "with little transparency or accountability," while Human Rights First noted that these trends "represent an unprecedented escalation of immigration law enforcement with serious implications for human rights" and that federal courts have already questioned several of these practices.
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