DHS head approved 10 Spirit planes lacking engines and ownership

(UNITED STATES) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem authorized an effort to buy 10 Boeing 737 jets from Spirit Airlines to expand deportation flights and for her own travel, only for officials to discover that Spirit Airlines did not own the planes and they lacked engines, according to people cited by the Wall Street Journal. The plan, pushed by Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski a few weeks ago, was abandoned after the findings, the Journal reported, as internal disputes over tactics spilled into open infighting within the Department of Homeland Security.

The purchase push came as the administration seeks to scale up removals to meet President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to deport one million undocumented immigrants in his first year. ICE officials warned Noem and Lewandowski that buying aircraft would cost far more than expanding the department’s flight contracts that already ferry detainees, the Journal reported, and a subsequent review uncovered that the airframes Spirit Airlines was said to be offering were not Spirit’s to sell.

“Once the officials looked into the proposal, they learned that Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy for a second time in August, didn’t own the planes,” the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that “the planes in question did not come with engines. These would need to be purchased separately, adding additional costs to the already mounting expenses for the department.”

The episode highlights both the political urgency to increase deportation flights and the operational risks of improvising a major acquisition in a complex aviation market. Spirit Airlines is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and returning aircraft to leasing firms such as AerCap rather than selling them outright, according to the reporting. A broader shortage of Pratt & Whitney engines has also led some carriers to cannibalize grounded jets for spare parts, leaving airframes without powerplants. Against that backdrop, the DHS review concluded that securing engines and airworthy certifications would add months and substantial new costs on top of any purchase price, undercutting the pitch that the 10 jets would be a quick, cheaper way to add removal capacity.

The push to acquire Spirit Airlines aircraft also fed tensions inside DHS over how to scale enforcement. The Journal reported that Border Czar Tom Homan clashed with Noem over the proposal and other initiatives, warning that the moves risked disrupting day-to-day operations. Homan raised his concerns with President Donald Trump, who then spoke with Lewandowski to address his conduct and urge better cooperation inside the department, according to the reporting. The friction surfaced as ICE and Border Protection mounted high-profile enforcement surges, including 3,000 arrests in Chicago over two months. In a recent 60 Minutes interview about immigration enforcement, Trump said agents “haven’t gone far enough.”

Noem’s office has not publicly detailed her role in the aircraft plan beyond the Journal’s account. A DHS spokesperson disputed some aspects of the newspaper’s reporting but did not specify which details were inaccurate. Spirit Airlines, based in Florida, did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment. The airline’s financial distress has reshaped its fleet plans, with court-supervised returns of leased aircraft to lessors who control the jets’ disposition. In bankruptcy, carriers typically need court approval to assume, reject, or negotiate lease terms, making direct sales by a lessee to a third party legally and practically complicated.

Officials told the Journal that the Spirit Airlines jets at the center of the DHS outreach would have required engines to be sourced separately, bringing fresh expense for procurement and installation, as well as maintenance reserves and spares. The report noted that adding those costs would make the aircraft far more expensive than simply contracting more lift from existing carriers that perform removal flights for the government. ICE already runs a network of charter operations that move detainees between facilities and to departure airports, a system the agency can scale through additional task orders with private contractors. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, those flights are a routine part of its Removal Operations and are typically purchased per mission, allowing the government to add or reduce capacity without owning aircraft.

The attempt to buy planes outright, including for Noem’s personal travel, marked a sharp departure from that approach. The Journal’s sources said Noem and Lewandowski pressed ICE to proceed with the 10-plane deal despite initial warnings from career officials about costs and logistics. When investigators checked the specific tail numbers associated with the proposed sale, they learned Spirit did not hold title because the jets were leased from specialist firms and under the control of those lessors. The discovery that the jets were missing engines—high-value assets currently in short supply because of global maintenance bottlenecks—effectively ended the push.

The dispute over the aircraft coincided with simmering arguments about how aggressively to centralize immigration enforcement decisions inside DHS. Homan, a longtime immigration enforcement official, has argued for tightening command channels to avoid last-minute directives that reroute personnel or assets away from planned operations, the Journal reported. The back-and-forth culminated in President Donald Trump calling Lewandowski to urge better coordination and discipline. While the White House has not issued a public readout of that call, the Journal’s account underscores how internal management strains are intersecting with the political drive to accelerate deportation flights.

The proposed acquisition also landed against the backdrop of scrutiny over DHS spending during recent fiscal turbulence. During the government shutdown, House Appropriations Committee Democrats said DHS purchased two Gulfstream jets for $200 million, a move that drew criticism from lawmakers who questioned prioritizing executive air travel while frontline agencies coped with budget constraints. The failed Spirit Airlines plan, with its steep added costs for engines and maintenance, echoed those concerns and raised questions about procurement channels and oversight for large-ticket aviation decisions.

For Spirit Airlines, the episode adds an unusual political footnote to its bankruptcy saga. The carrier’s financial crisis, compounded by Pratt & Whitney engine issues that have idled parts of its fleet, has pushed it to return aircraft to lessors and trim operations. That dynamic can leave rows of idle airframes parked at maintenance hubs, some without engines, but those jets are not the airline’s to sell and would require extensive work to return to service. In normal conditions, government buyers seeking aircraft would approach owners or lessors directly, not a lessee using the planes under contract.

Inside DHS, the discovery process that unraveled the Spirit Airlines proposal appears to have been decisive. Once officials confirmed Spirit did not own the planes and that the jets were engineless, the plan was dropped. The Journal quoted its sources as saying the idea had been framed as a rapid way to expand deportation flights while offering travel options for the secretary, but it quickly collided with procurement reality and market constraints. The department’s existing charter model, by contrast, allows ICE to surge capacity for removal missions without carrying the burden of acquiring, maintaining, and crewing its own fleet.

The White House’s enforcement push continues even as DHS recalibrates its tactics. The Chicago surge, with 3,000 arrests in two months by ICE and Border Protection, highlights how the administration is seeking visible results while testing policy levers and operational tools. Trump’s comment that agents “haven’t gone far enough” suggests pressure will remain high on DHS leaders to deliver numbers, a context that helps explain why a plan as unconventional as buying engineless jets from Spirit Airlines made it to senior desks before being scrapped.

As of now, the department has not announced any new aircraft purchases to support removals, and there is no indication that DHS will revisit a direct acquisition strategy after the Spirit Airlines experience. A DHS spokesperson’s decision to dispute parts of the Journal’s story without specifying which elements were wrong leaves open questions about who greenlit what and when, and whether internal checks were bypassed under pressure to show progress on deportation flights. What is clear from the reporting is that Noem’s involvement and Lewandowski’s advocacy prompted a review that concluded the planes could not be bought from Spirit and, even if they could, would arrive without engines, saddling the department with substantial additional costs.

The Journal also reported that Spirit Airlines did not respond to its requests for comment, limiting the public record to internal DHS accounts and those of administration officials. Without Spirit’s perspective or a detailed DHS rebuttal, key details remain locked behind unnamed sources and procurement documents not yet public. But the basic sequence stands: an urgent push to add planes, a warning from ICE about costs versus contracts, a deeper look that found Spirit did not own the aircraft and that the jets were missing engines, and a rapid abandonment of the plan amid rising internal tensions.

For communities watching enforcement actions and for the contractors that run charter flights, the message from the abandoned purchase is pragmatic. Scaling removals will likely rely on expanding existing contracts rather than buying aircraft, especially amid a tight engine market and the financial upheaval of a carrier like Spirit Airlines. It also points to the need for clear procurement guardrails inside DHS as political leaders pursue fast results. In the words of the Wall Street Journal’s account, “Once the officials looked into the proposal, they learned that Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy for a second time in August, didn’t own the planes,” and “the planes in question did not come with engines. These would need to be purchased separately, adding additional costs to the already mounting expenses for the department.”