What is actually happening with the “mass deportations” and “immigration crackdown” so far?

1. 8,000 people have been detained so far as part of the Trump administration’s “targeted enforcement”. These high-end criminals with outstanding arrest warrants are called the “worst of the worst”.

My take: This means approximately 4,000 people are being detained (with “eventual” removal) per week. At this rate, based on a conservative estimate of 14 million illegal immigrants physically present in the U.S., it would take approximately 3500 weeks or 67.3 years.

2. Because some countries of origin will not accept these detained individuals, they have to be released back into the U.S. while they await processing, exactly what President Trump criticized the Biden administration for.

My take: 8,000 detentions do not equal 8,000 guaranteed removals, so add a few more years to the 67.3-year estimate.

3. The border is not 100% secure. The number of “apprehensions” has gone down since Trump took office.

My take: While this number does reflect a decrease in attempted crossings, it DOES NOT account for the ones who weren’t apprehended, the “getaways”. Historically the getaways outnumber the “apprehended”, so if, for example, the net loss was 5,000 over these two weeks (likely to be more like 10K or more on average), this means all the people successfully removed were less than the ones who successfully entered illegally, which means that the US still has more illegal immigrants than it did before the Trump administration took over.

4. Removing all the illegal immigrants would cost over 1 trillion dollars and would require infinitely more manpower within ICE and deputizing all state and local law enforcement to have any chance of moving the needle, and this is fiscally and logistically impossible.

My take: Removing the most dangerous criminal immigrants is a concept that would make sense in any country, but without a zero-entry border and infinite resources, the “mass deportations” are a concept that can’t be successfully enforced.

5. Mass deportations are a myth, This is a highly flawed and underfunded “targeted employment” plan, which will not lead to even 1% of the removal that this administration purports to be removing.

My take: Remove the criminals and phase all the other law-abiding immigrants into the US system, raise trillions in fines and taxes, and use those funds to secure the border and build enforcement.