Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose 23rd District spans from south-central Texas north to San Antonio, through West Texas and over to El Paso, told the Washington Examiner on Saturday that the White House-led immigration operations will increase exponentially in the coming days to turn back migrants who illegally cross the border, as well as return illegal immigrants who have been arrested within the United States.

“I expect very quickly this will be streamlined, and instead of 80 a day, or a few hundred, it’ll pick up very quickly. There’ll be hundreds a day,” Gonzales said in a phone call from El Paso, where he has spoken with senior military, homeland security, Mexican partners, and local elected officials late this week.

“You’re going to talk hundreds, and then you’re going to talk thousands,” Gonzales said. “You’re going to have people that are going to be driven from detention centers or other places to points along the Mexican border and released — that has happened. It’ll continue to happen and probably happen at a larger scale on the Mexican side, if you will. And then there’ll be more and more flights going back to various different countries.”

The White House announced Friday morning that the Defense Department had begun to repatriate illegal immigrants, using military cargo aircraft as the Trump administration steps up its crackdown at the southern border.

The first such military flight out of El Paso took place Thursday evening, originating from Biggs Army Airfield and bound for Guatemala with approximately 80 Guatemalan nationals on board, according to a Department of Homeland Security official authorized to speak with the media.

The flight, the official specified, was of immigrants apprehended at the southern border and not within the U.S. Gonzales said soon flights will be flying both groups out of the U.S. depending on their country of origin.

“All this is developing,” Gonzales said. “But my initial take being on the ground, having spoken with all these various different actors that are involved in this, is things are going very, very smooth at a very early time period in this which bodes well.”

Gonzales added that constituents whom he had interacted with, as well as federal law enforcement, had been supportive of the operation in recent conversations with him.

“Constituents are starting to kind of say, are feeling as if the nightmare of the last administration has come to an end. So they feel kind of a breath of fresh air,” said Gonzales, a third-term congressman.

“The Border Patrol agents and military and just other federal agencies feel as if the page has turned and it’s a new chapter, and they’re excited to help write that new chapter,” he said. “And honestly, just getting back to being able to enforce the law. It’s as basic as that sounds. That has been a huge shot in the arm, specifically for Border Patrol agents to just be able to do their job again.”