The Trump Administration has been highlighting immigration enforcement efforts that have been occurring since the new president was sworn in. That includes deportation flights.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted two photos online Friday of what appear to be handcuffed undocumented immigrants entering U.S. military aircraft.

The flights left Biggs Army Air Field in El Paso, Texas, sending 80 Guatemalans back to their home country.

Leavitt said in a message with the photos is that "if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face consequences."

While using military planes for the flights is new, the federal government has been flying deported people back to their home country for years.

Usually these are flights flown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. Sometimes these are charter flights, while other times ICE will use commercial airlines.

Last year, ICE flew more than 860 flights and helped DHS remove roughly 700,000 people. That's an average of about 1,900 people a day.

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These deportation efforts have been widely supported. Scripps News heard from Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who said using federal assets is OK, especially if it's to remove dangerous criminals.

"If President Trump focuses on deporting dangerous criminals, those who have committed additional crimes in the United States against Americans, I think there will be broad and bipartisan support for their deportation," Sen. Coons said.

Earlier this week Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said the military would be providing airlift support to deport more than 5,000 immigrants from California and Texas.

The U.S. military is beefing up its presence at the southwest border as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on unauthorized immigration.

The Defense Department announced Wednesday it is assigning 1,500 active duty troops to the border with Mexico. It is the first wave of military deployments to come, Defense Department officials have said, as they carry out Trump's executive orders aimed at stopping illegal immigration.

"As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do," Trump said during his inaugural speech.

The troops will serve in a variety of support roles including by helping build more physical barriers and carrying out deportation flights for more than 5,000 undocumented immigrants.

Sending the military to the border in limited support roles isn't new. There were already 2,500 troops at the border when Trump took office, according to Defense Department officials.

Presidents George W, Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all called up troops to assist immigration authorities.

Governors have also sent state national guard members.

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But Trump's executive orders have made clear he is considering using the military to enforce

immigration laws, which would go further than the military's previous support missions at the border.

One executive order gives U.S. Northern Command, which assigns military missions in the U.S., 10 days to draw up a "campaign" to seal the border and stop unlawful mass migration.

"It would be an attempt to transform immigration enforcement into a military operation," said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. "Something like this I think would generate tremendous opposition and resistance."

The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, prohibits U.S. troops from engaging in civilian law enforcement. Trump is weighing whether to invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, a law that gives the commander in chief the power to use military forces on U.S. soil in extreme cases.

While Trump has declared a national emergency at the border, the number of unauthorized crossings from Mexico to the U.S. has plummeted in the past year to levels similar to when Trump left office at the end of his first term if office.