569
Air Force Has Troops Remove Names, Unit Patches from Uniforms During Deportation Flights
(www.military.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
569 points (99.1% liked)
News
26269 readers
6100 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe it shouldn't be. You know, what with accountability being a thing that people should be held to...
Should an airman’s family be targeted by cartels because they flew cartel members back to their home nation?
That's a good point.
Maybe we shouldn't have them do that in the first place either and if there are dangerous cartel members in the U.S., they can be put in U.S. prisons.
And after serving prison times what do we do? Most nations kick you out after you serve time in prison for serious crimes. How do you send them home?
Last I checked, planes not run by the Air Force flew to pretty much every country on the planet. Also, there are boats. And if we're talking the Americas, cars and trucks.
And if they have served their time, why do they need to be deported in a military plane?
Do we deport criminals housed in prisons for being dangerous people using commercial carriers?
They are being permanently exiled for their crimes why would ypu compromise that by letting them wander free?
I see. You think we should continue to treat former prisoners like prisoners even though they've served their sentence.
How very American of you.
If we are exiling someone for violent crimes why would they be free to roam the nation? You do not have the right to live anywhere other than the nation you have citizenship in. That isn't "American" of me as that is the law in all nations.
What are you even talking about now? You said they should be deported after serving their sentence. I'm saying if they've already served their sentence, why do they need to be treated like a dangerous criminal and deport them on an Air Force plane? Put them on a United flight to wherever. If they're such a risk on a plane, have a sky marshal sit next to them on the flight. They're allowed to be armed and they don't have to wear anything that identifies them. What is this cartel member going to do?
They transport prisoners still serving sentences domestically that way sometimes. They don't use the Air Force because it's one guy on a plane and that's silly.
Because if they are being exiled never to return to the USA you deport them through non-commercial means because they aren't free to interact with society. They do not have the right to wander the nation as non-citizens forbidden from being in the USA.
It is not the job of commercial flight crews to be involved in the legal deportation of violent criminals forbidden to access any part of the country. If the criminal decides to violate the agreement to leave the flight crew has zero recourse to stop them. The air marshal is a single guy on a plane. You are mistaken if you think the USAF is putting these deportees under the eye of a single guy.
Finally by placing them on government planes rather than commercial planes the government can be assured the criminal's nation can take them into custody when appropriate.
What could they possibly do on a commercial airliner that other prisoners that get transported on commercial airliners can't do?
Again, this happens domestically all the time.
Are these people extra special dangerous because they're foreign?
Edit: Also this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Prisoner_and_Alien_Transportation_System
Is this a realistic possibility?
Why would a cartel kick that hornets nest?
Yes, and they have killed service members before.
That doesn't mean that reprisals are a realistic possibility.
People manage all sorts of risks every day.
It's not a question of whether some infinitesimal risk exists, it's a question of whether removing names is an appropriate mitigation.
Obviously you think that it is, but I think most people value transparency and accountability. The elephant in the room here is that anonymity would hypothetically allow service members to act with impunity.
I'm sure you can see the risks in having service members escort detainees with no accountability for their actions.
Not wearing nametapes has been a thing for decades, long before Trump was president.
I think the main problem people are having is that they are being used to enforce domestic policy within the United States, which is not normal at all and is arguably illegal.
Ok so you obviously don't know what you're talking about. There are a lot of people in OPs image but only 4 are Air Force personnel, see if you can spot them.
That would probably be a lot easier if they didn't remove all of their patches. Huh...
Not really considering they're wearing multicams.
Oh right, I forgot that if you are in the Air Force, that is the only possible way you can dress at all times. Never does anyone in the Air Force ever wear anything other than that.
Why else would I be making so many comments?
Then you would know that not everyone on the plane would be wearing multicam.
It's a bit too blurry to be sure, but I'm pretty sure the guy standing to the right in the back next to the console with what looks like a patrol cap is more than likely the loadmaster and would be wearing a flight suit and over jacket.
Higher quality photo along with a gallery located here: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/8840870/department-defense-augments-us-customs-and-border-protection-removal-flight-efforts
Still a bit hard to tell, but the guy is wearing a headset unlike any other of the border patrol guys, so he very well may be part of the flight crew. The point is that there's going to be at least 3 flight crew not in multicam.
Your question doesn’t even follow what I said. I wasn’t even talking about you. Not everything is about you.
*responds to smartass comment*
"Not everything is about you bro!"
Ok
I think you need to read this conversation, because you are making less and less sense.
Me:
You:
Your question does not follow what I said, and you literally made it about you making comments as if that had any relevance to the suggestion that Air Force personnel can only wear one type of outfit.
Or are you saying you're one of the people in that photo and that's why you think this is something about you?
What does the percent of people in the picture being in the service have to do with anything......? We're talking about federal military members being ordered by the executive to enforce domestic policy, which is illegal.
Are you purposely being obtuse, or are you really this dumb?
And yes, I can spot the Air Force personnel..... I've spent 18 years living on AFB all over the country and abroad, my dad was a SMSgt.
The Air Force is not enforcing domestic policy here. If you see Airman out on the streets arresting people then you'd have a point. That's why I mentioned the 6 agents. The USAF is providing logistical support (yes they bring their own security too, the 4 in multicams).
If you disagree please look it up yourself.
I don't think you have any kind of authority to really substantiate that particular semantic dispute.
I'm sure we'll probably see it brought before a court at some point, but I would argue that if the policy isn't possible to execute without the logistical support of the military then the military is crucial to the enforcement of the policy.
Source
This article is limited to national guard personnel, active duty troops have even more limitations to domestic operations. Which is why national guard units were utilized to "secure the border", and not actual active duty service members.