Next week will mark 100 days since President Donald Trump entered office for his second term. Researchers from the Migration Policy Institute are looking at what’s changed with border and immigration policy.
The report's co-author, Kathleen Bush-Joseph, says unprecedented shifts have happened so far.
“He’s really taking a whole-of-government approach … trying to execute these goals of mass deportation, though currently they’re falling short of their stated aim,” said Bush-Joseph, who serves as a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
She says sweeping changes include the Day 1 invasion declaration at the U.S.-Mexico border, which led to asylum access being shut down completely. It also helped usher in the 18th century Alien Enemies Act, which Trump has used to send hundreds of Venezuelan men accused of having gang ties to El Salvador — many without due process.
Despite that, Bush-Joseph says staffing and infrastructure shortfalls within the Department of Homeland Security mean Trump’s stated aim — to deport 1 million people a year — is not on track to happen. But, she says official government data about the total number of deportations so far has been hard to track down.
“We've seen various news reports indicating that the Trump administration may be on pace to deport roughly 500,000 people in its first year,” she said. “And as it ramps up, and if Congress provides more resources, it could be that that number goes up as the year goes on, but certainly the lack of data is adding to the confusing nature of what's happening.”
Bush-Joseph says unlike under the Biden administration, many of the removals under Trump so far have happened away from the border.
“They’re trying to get to those higher numbers that we saw during the Obama administration, lots of arrests in the interior. But that's really difficult given the current personnel and resource challenges,” she said. “I think it's definitely taking time to be shifting the enforcement machinery from the border to the interior, which is partly why we've seen the Trump administration tapping all of these other agencies to pull officers to assist with arrests.”
The Trump administration is asking Congress to spend billions on additional detention space, ICE personnel and deportation planes. Bush-Joseph says even if it gets that money, scaling up will take time.
Economists and rights advocates have warned mass deportations will have broad social and economic consequences.
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