In its former life, the charter plane with the tail No. N917XA went by the moniker Trump Force Two.
The ubiquitous red, white and blue livery logged thousands of miles last year as the campaign plane of JD Vance, who was elected as President Trump’s vice president in November.
But that plane — the same one the campaign offered rides on to entice donors to give money — is now carrying out a much different and clandestine kind of task for the Trump administration.
The Boeing 737 has been chartered more than a dozen times this year by the federal government to deport migrants to several Central American countries, according to public aviation logs and a group that tracks the flights.
The Trump-Vance campaign rode to victory in part on its vow to undertake the largest deportation push in American history. The Trump administration has since expanded the range of people who can be targeted for removal, sped up the deportation process for others and, in some cases, tightened the rules for legal immigrants.
In 2018, during President Trump’s first term, the plane was used for at least three deportation flights that took about 360 migrants to El Salvador and Guatemala, according to the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. The center obtained the data through a public records request.
A fourth flight, chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of what is known as its ICE Air program, was used to transfer about 144 migrants between detention centers in the United States.
The repurposing of Mr. Vance’s former campaign plane for migrant deportation flights was first reported by The Arizona Mirror. The publication tallied an additional 35 flights made by the plane in 2020 between ICE hubs in the United States and Central and South American countries.
It was not clear whether Mr. Vance, who represented Ohio in the Senate before being elected vice president, was aware of the plane’s history.
A spokesman for the vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is part of, declined to comment on the specific plane, citing security concerns.
“ICE uses subcontractors to help carry out its mission to deport illegal aliens,” the department said in a statement. “These subcontractors are not exclusive to ICE.”
The plane, which is about 22 years old, is registered to Eastern 737 Asset Holdings L.L.C. in Kansas City, Mo., according to a Federal Aviation Administration registry. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
From mid-April through May 24 of this year, the plane was chartered for 16 deportation flights to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, according to Tom Cartwright, an immigrant rights advocate and a volunteer for the group Witness at the Border. The flight data was verified by The New York Times.
Soon after Mr. Trump chose Mr. Vance as his running mate last July, the plane became a mainstay on the trail, ferrying the future vice president and an entourage of handlers and journalists between Washington and battleground states.
Last August, the plane had to make an emergency landing in Milwaukee shortly after takeoff because of a door malfunction. The flight returned to Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, where the problem was quickly resolved before it continued to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
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