'Deportation flights have begun' as Trump sends 'strong and clear message,' White House says

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Friday that "deportation flights have begun," releasing photos of people boarding military aircraft.

"President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences," she wrote on X.

One of the photos was taken at Biggs Army Airfield at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources told Fox News. The sources added that the plane in the image holds 80 people and departed for Guatemala on Thursday at 5 p.m. local time.

Rep. Tony Gonazles, R-Texas. said his district "has been ground zero for the border crisis and will be ground zero for DEPORTATION operations. 

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"In 4 days President Trump has done more to protect our country than Biden did in 4 years," Gonazles added on X.

It's unclear who was boarding the flights. Leavitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Additional U.S. troops also have arrived and started putting up wire near the Ysleta Port of Entry in El Paso, the CBP told Fox News.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a number of child sex offenders, as well as gang members and other criminals, among the more than 530 illegal immigrants it caught on Thursday.

The haul is the latest day of busy work for ICE, which is leading the mass deportation operation launched by the new administration. Before Thursday, ICE had made 460 arrests since Trump was inaugurated.

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On Thursday, ICE agents also detained several workers at a fish market in Newark, N.J., Fox 5 NY reported.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka slammed the operation as an "egregious act" and a violation of the Fourth Amendment after agents reportedly swooped in to raid the business "without producing a warrant."

Baraka said that one of those detained is a U.S. military veteran who "suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned."

"This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures….’" Baraka wrote in a statement.

"Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized," Barak said, adding that he is "ready and willing to defend and protect civil and human rights."

Fox News' Brooke Taylor, Adam Shaw and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.