Noem's $464M Jet Fleet Barely Flew Deportations
Noem's $464M Jet Fleet Barely Flew Deportations
The News
The Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on 10 used jets it said were urgently needed for mass deportation flights — and the fleet has barely flown any, according to The New York Times, which first reported the internal documents.
Seven older Boeing 737s have sat parked at an airport in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for months, with no staff assigned to operate them.
The three luxury business jets in the fleet have gone to other uses: DHS spent nearly $200 million on a pair of Gulfstream G650s, leasing one to FBI Director Kash Patel and handing the other to border czar Tom Homan, The Independent reported.
Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee say the department is "running an in-house private jet service" and are asking the DHS inspector general to investigate.
Timeline
DHS awards the first no-bid aircraft contract, to Daedalus Aviation Corporation, at a time when Immigration and Customs Enforcement was already paying contractors to run its ICE Air deportation network, The Independent reported.
The purchases proceed under no-bid contracts justified by an "urgent" need tied to the administration's mass deportation campaign. Congressional Republicans push tens of billions of dollars into DHS outside the annual budget process, including through the One Beautiful Bill Act.
President Donald Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to The New Republic.
Federal contract records show the Daedalus contract grows by $303 million.
Sens. Patty Murray and Chris Murphy send DHS a letter demanding contract details, flight logs and legal justifications for every plane.
The Times report publishes; Noem and Mullin's department publicly blame each other.
Reactions
DHS pinned the deal on the previous administration of the department. The contract for Daedalus "was made and approved by department leadership" before Mullin was sworn in, the department said in a statement, adding that it "reserves the right to adjust course in an environment with evolving requirements and demands."
A spokesman for Noem pushed back, telling the Times the jet purchase was finalized under Mullin — a claim that lines up with the $303 million contract increase recorded on Mullin's first day.
Senate Democrats were blunter. "This administration has lit taxpayer dollars on fire by acquiring new and unnecessary planes to jet Trump officials around in extreme luxury that the vast majority of Americans will never experience," Murray and Murphy wrote. "The American people deserve a full accounting of this gross misuse of their tax dollars."
John Sandweg, acting ICE director under the Obama administration, told the Times: "If you asked me to write a list of the things ICE needed to increase the number of deportations, buying its own fleet of airplanes would absolutely not make the top ten."
What's Next
Murray and Murphy have asked the DHS inspector general to open an investigation and have demanded that Mullin produce contracts, flight logs and the legal justification for buying, operating and maintaining the aircraft. They say the answers are needed to write next year's DHS funding bill.
One Boeing 787-8 that was outfitted with a bedroom, shower, kitchen, bar and flat-screen televisions is having the bedroom removed and is being loaned to the Department of Defense, the senators said.
More
Of the seven parked 737s, which seat up to 200 passengers, three were meant to support ICE deportation flights and four were intended for congressional delegations — a use DHS "has not provided information on why it is necessary or a permissible use of funds," according to the senators.
The Independent reported that Daedalus Aviation's chairman donated to a political committee that supported Noem, and that the company's president also runs Salus Worldwide Solutions, which received nearly $1 billion under a separate DHS contract. Corey Lewandowski, a close Noem aide, is facing congressional scrutiny over his role in DHS contracts and has been accused of participating in an alleged "pay-to-play scheme" steering contracts to firms tied to him and his associates.
The Trump administration has invoked "emergency" conditions hundreds of times to rush through no-bid contracts, dozens of which are under congressional scrutiny or the subject of federal lawsuits.
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