US military aircraft have started flying detained migrants out of America on the orders of President Donald Trump.

It comes as the White House released images of men whose hands and ankles were shackled being led on to a plane.

Mr Trump‘s press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted the photos on X and declared: “Deportation flights have begun.”

She said Mr Trump was “sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences”.

It was the first time in recent memory that American military aircraft were being used to fly migrants out of the US, according to an official.

Such planes have in the past been used to relocate people from one country to another, including in 2021 during the United States’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Friday, two military aircraft, each carrying about 80 migrants, flew from America to Guatemala, a US official said.

One C-17 reportedly took off from Biggs Army Air Field in Texas, while another C-17 departed from Tucson in Arizona.

“Guatemala and the United States are committed to putting an end to illegal migration and strengthening border security. Starting with two flights today,” the US State Department said.

On Instagram, the Guatemalan vice president Karin Herrera’s office posted a video of a military plane landing in Guatemala.

A caption said: “The @guatemalagob [Guatemalan government] remains committed to protecting the integrity of migrants. The vice presidency will continue to verify that the reception of the returnees is in a dignified and safe manner.”

Some 79 Guatemalans returned, all of whom were adults, including 31 women and 48 men, the Guatemalan Migration Institute wrote.

‘Mexico denies US flight access to land’

Another flight which was supposed to fly to Mexico did not take off after Mexican authorities denied it access to land, officials said, according to NBC News.

The Pentagon has said the US military would provide flights for the deportations of more than 5,000 immigrants held by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.

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On his first day in the Oval Office, Mr Trump declared illegal immigration a national emergency, and tasked his military with helping to boost security at the Mexico border.

The president has promised the biggest deportation operation in US history, with his new border czar, Tom Homan, saying he’ll target “the worst, first”.

His executive order on 20 January told the Pentagon to send as many troops as needed to obtain “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States”.

‘Hundreds of US soldiers to Mexican border’

The Trump administration said earlier this week the US military would be sending 1,500 additional active-duty troops to the Mexican border. A second tranche of troops could be deployed as soon as next week.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been arrested across the US by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in places such as Buffalo, New York, Chicago, St Paul, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Denver.

‘Daily ICE arrests almost double’

Of the 538 arrests on Thursday, 373 were for criminal allegations and 165 were for non-criminal reasons.

According to the most recent data, the 538 figure was almost double ICE’s daily average of 282 in September 2024.

The Trump administration has said its priority is to arrest migrants with criminal backgrounds. The Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday it would allow ICE to arrest undocumented people at places such as schools and churches, which was barred under previous administrations.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the department said.

Many of the ICE actions were not unusual. Similar deportation flights also took place under the Biden administration, though not using military planes.

NBC News reports that New Jersey officials and immigrant rights supporters have criticised federal immigration authorities for carrying out a workplace raid on a small business in the city of Newark without a warrant.

In a news conference, Mayor Ras Baraka said several agents with ICE entered the back of the business, arrested three undocumented workers, and detained and questioned employees who are US citizens.

“People were fingerprinted. Pictures of their IDs and faces were taken there,” the Democrat mayor said. “I was appalled, upset, angry that this would happen here in this state, in this country, that this would be allowed.”

“You see on the news all the time undocumented, illegal, and you realise that’s you.

“There’s fear. It’s in your head, it’s stuck with you. Even when you get out there and you find someone staring at you, you’re concerned. Who are they? Did someone tell on me?”

Franklin is not his real name and he’s asked us to keep his identity secret. He is an African migrant fleeing political persecution in a country he doesn’t want us to name.

The abundance of caution shows how terrified he is that he might jeopardise his asylum application in this new Trump era by speaking with the media, but he wants his words to count.

“Maybe it will help, maybe it will help others”, he says. “They’ll know they’re not alone.”

President Trump has promised the biggest deportation in US history, with his new border czar, Tom Homan, saying he’ll target “the worst, first”.

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Franklin has not committed a crime, violent or otherwise. He should not have to worry. But he does.

“If you’re going door to door home by home, restaurant by restaurant, how are you discerning who is a hardened criminal and who’s not?”, asks Anuj Gupta, who runs The Welcoming Centre in Philadelphia, an NGO focused on economic growth through immigrant integration.

“So there is the fear of getting swept up in that, irrespective of what your status is. That chilling effect is more impactful than whatever their potential policy or operationalisation of it may be. It also dampens everyone’s willingness to participate in day to day life.”

Africatown in South West Philadelphia is a hub for the African diaspora, some of whom have lived here for decades, many of whom are more recent arrivals.

It wears its heritage proudly, via colourful street murals and African flags along the main Woodland avenue which houses a cluster of shops and small businesses.

A new $23m (£18.56m) community centre, the Africa Centre is due to be completed next April. It is a case study in thriving immigrant entrepreneurship.

“A lot of people are scared right now to come out because of Trump’s threats, a lot of people who don’t have documents,” says Sullay, to explain the relatively empty streets.

It could be the chilling effect of potential ICE raids, the widely known acronym for federal immigration and customs enforcement. It could be the bitter cold, minus 12 in Philly on Thursday.

Amadou – not his real name – from Guinea is confident his asylum claim is in the works. He believes in the system. He proudly shows off his application on the Biden-era app which was supposed to provide a legal pathway to asylum, and the hearing he has scheduled for later in the year.

“I like Donald Trump,” Amadou says. “I think he is a good president. If he says America First, maybe that’s good.

“If my president said Guinea First, that would be good too. Maybe I would stay there.”

Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified files on the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

The 1963 killing in Dallas is the source of one of the most well-known conspiracy theories of modern times.

Lee Harvey Oswald was said to be the gunman, but was shot dead himself two days after JFK‘s killing.

Theories that have persisted include that there was a second shooter and that it was plot connected to communist Cuba.

President Trump had promised during his election campaign to make public the last withheld records on the case.

He signed an executive order to that effect on Thursday, telling reporters “everything will be revealed”.

The order will also declassify remaining federal records on the assassinations of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, and JFK’s brother, Robert F Kennedy, who was shot dead the same year while running for president.

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Mr Trump had promised to uncover the documents during his first term but agreed with CIA and FBI pleas to keep some secret.

JFK’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is the president’s pick for health secretary and has said he is not convinced just one man was behind his uncle’s murder.

After signing the order, Mr Trump ordered the pen should be given to RFK Jr.

However, JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg hit back at President Trump’s executive order, saying there was “nothing heroic” about it.

“The truth is alot sadder than the myth – a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” he wrote on X.

“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back.”

The attorney general and head of national intelligence must now come up with a plan in the next 15 days to declassify the JFK files, and within 45 days for the other cases.

It is therefore unclear exactly when they will see the light of day – and experts on the case are not holding their breath for any major revelations.

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Only a few thousand of the millions of records on the JFK case are still to be fully declassified.

“There’s always the possibility that something would slip through that would be the tiny tip of a much larger iceberg that would be revealing,” said Larry J Sabato, author of a book on Kennedy.

“That’s what researchers look for. Now, odds are you won’t find that but it is possible that it’s there.”

The executive order is the latest in a slew signed by Mr Trump in his first few days back in the White House.

Others include leaving the Paris climate agreement, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and terminating government diversity programmes.

However, his attempt to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants has already been temporarily blocked by a judge.