The Blackwater plan for Trump's mass deportations: Military camps and a private army of enforcers

A delegation of military contractors, led by stalwart Donald Trump ally and former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has proposed that the federal government use militarized "processing camps," a private fleet of 100 planes and a "small army" of private citizens with arrest powers to pursue a mass deportation policy.

The 26-page blueprint submitted to Trump advisors just before the inauguration lays out an array of draconian measures to deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterm elections, according to a copy received by Politico. Discussions over the proposal, which is estimated by the document to cost $25 billion, are reportedly underway between the contractors and White House officials.

Even if implemented, the plan faces significant legal hurdles, experts told Politico. Recommendations likely to face legal challenges include a call to form a screening team of 2,000 lawyers to refer people to mass deportation hearings; create a public database of people summoned to those hearings'; sponsor a bounty program for local police departments; and deputize 10,000 private citizens with federal law enforcement powers.

Along with Prince, other key members of the group hail from the upper echelons of Blackwater, a private military contractor that provided security services for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company has been implicated in several violent incidents, including the 2007 Nisour Square Massacre, where Blackwater personnel killed 17 civilians and injured 20. Four employees were convicted by the United States and later pardoned by Trump (since the incident, Blackwater has undergone several name changes and now is part of Constellis Holdings).

Deporting 12 million people in two years “would require the government to eject nearly 500,000 illegal aliens per month,” the document pitched by the group says. “To keep pace with the Trump deportations, it would require a 600% increase in activity. It is unlikely that the government could swell its internal ranks to keep pace with this demand … in order to process this enormous number of deportations, the government should enlist outside assistance.”

The Trump administration began arresting and deporting people immediately after Jan. 20, but the pace has since slowed as federal law enforcement struggles to scrape together enough personnel and detention space to handle everyone they're rounding up.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico that the administration has been receiving "numerous unsolicited proposals" and “remains aligned on and committed to a whole-of-government approach to securing our borders, mass deporting criminal illegal migrants, and enforcing our immigration laws.”

Those measures, Prince and former Blackwater executive Mathews wrote in the document, are essential to save the U.S. economy (the vast majority of economists say immigration boosts GDP).

"The nation has to eject as many of these illegal aliens as quickly as possible,” they wrote.