A group of major military contractors, including the founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, presented a proposal to U.S. President Donald Trump for carrying out mass deportations with the help of the private sector.
The plan would include a network of "processing camps" on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a "small army" of private citizens authorized to make arrests.
The plan, presented in a 26-page document that President Trump's advisors received before his inauguration, has an estimated cost of 25 billion dollars.
The proposal suggests a series of aggressive tactics to quickly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterm elections, including some that would likely face legal and operational hurdles.
The group, which includes some former immigration officials, is led by Prince, who has close ties with Trump, and Bill Mathews, former operations director of Blackwater, the world's most powerful private army, which operated in Iraq and Afghanistan during the war on terror.
