Trump calls for mass deportations. How would that work?

Illegal immigration is a major campaign issue for Donald Trump – and has become part of his survival story. As he turned his head to view a related chart at a July 13 rally, a bullet meant to assassinate him only wounded his ear.

In 2015 during his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said he planned to deport 11 million people unauthorized to be in the United States. He downsized that scope to 2 million to 3 million once elected the following year. That’s closer to the level of deportations, along with pandemic-era expulsions, he oversaw as president.

When the number of unauthorized migrant encounters spiked after Mr. Trump left office, Republicans urged President Joe Biden to take executive action to curb the influx, rather than wait for Congress to pass a border bill. They pointed to how the Trump administration used executive actions to rein in the release of unauthorized immigrants into the country, and they expect the same tack if he’s voted in again. That vision includes what Mr. Trump – and the Republican Party platform – calls “the largest deportation operation in American history.”

“Even larger than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower,” former President Trump said at the party convention last month, recalling a controversial mass deportation campaign of Mexicans in the 1950s. During the event, supporters waved “Mass deportation now!” signs. Immigrant advocates, meanwhile, decry those plans, raising family separation and due process concerns.

The Democratic Party nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has not emphasized immigration nearly as much on the campaign trail so far. But in Arizona last week, Ms. Harris called for “comprehensive [immigration] reform that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.” Republicans call her the Biden administration’s “border czar,” though supporters say her assignment had a narrower purview.

Conservative critics also link her to record-high levels of encounters with Border Patrol agents at the U.S. southern border during the Biden-Harris administration – more than triple the overall encounters under Mr. Trump. Those figures tracked by the Border Patrol have dropped to their lowest point since President Biden took office, after he took executive action in June to limit asylum claims. 

Americans, meanwhile, are politically split on whether to deport all unauthorized immigrants, a group estimated at more than 11 million. Most Republicans – 84% – favor this measure, reports a June Gallup poll. That support drops to 41% for independents and 22% for Democrats. 

What has Mr. Trump said about mass deportation this election? 

While the Republican presidential nominee’s exact plans for mass deportations are vague, they’re a frequent talking point, which he repeated Monday in a conversation with Elon Musk.   

In an extensive April interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trump said he had “no choice” but to start mass deportations, if elected, due to the number of migrants who have entered unlawfully since he left office. When pressed for plan details, he said he’d work with the National Guard and local law enforcement, and “start with the criminals that are coming in.” 

Delcia Lopez/AP/File

A member of the National Guard checks on his colleague near the Hidalgo International Bridge in Hidalgo, Texas, April 19, 2011.

Mr. Trump’s campaign website highlights a plan for him to use National Guard and local law enforcement in “cooperative states” to “assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals.” But in the interview, he left open the possibility of using other branches of the U.S. military “if necessary.”

Recent presidents, including George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Biden, have deployed National Guard troops to the U.S. southern border in support roles. However, “a number of legal considerations may arise” if the president directs the military to enforce immigration law, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report. 

Mr. Trump has also pledged to “stop the outrageous abuse of parole authority” under the current White House, which has permitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants in recent years to live and work temporarily in the U.S. 

How feasible are Mr. Trump’s deportation plans? 

Immigration experts cite not just logistical but also legal hurdles to rounding up and expelling many people in the U.S. without permission.

Lawsuits against such plans are likely and may temper any rollout. A conservative Supreme Court justice underscored immigrants’ right to due process back in 1993. The Fifth Amendment “entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in Reno v. Flores.

The U.S. could expand deportations with three groups of people that are already deportable, says John Fabbricatore, former field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations in Denver. That includes those with outstanding orders of removal that have yet to be completed, immigrants with multiple criminal convictions, and people who entered the U.S. lawfully but then overstayed their visas. 

Removing those unauthorized immigrants would keep the government “busy for years,” says Mr. Fabbricatore, a Republican running in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. “You’re going to have this deterrent that’s going to cause a lot of them to leave, just on the fact that they know [the country is] being serious about our immigration laws now,” he adds.

Immigrant advocates are bracing for impact.

“Our biggest concern is that we are going to be returning people to countries where they face harm,” says Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres of HIAS, a nonprofit serving refugees and asylum-seekers. 

“We would rather see comprehensive immigration reform,” says Ms. Dojaquez-Torres, an attorney who has represented asylum-seekers. Unauthorized immigrants who don’t have criminal histories, pay taxes, and are “just trying to work,” she says, deserve a path to legal status.

Can agencies handle more deportations?

Expanding deportations raises logistical questions around capacity.  

Currently, ICE has up to 41,500 detention beds and around 6,000 Enforcement and Removal Operations officers – compared with millions of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Cooperation from local law enforcement around the detaining of potentially deportable immigrants varies across the country, often due to politics.

“We don’t have the manpower to be going after everyone who is removable,” says a spokesperson for ICE, adding that the agency focuses enforcement “on criminals and those who pose a threat” to public safety. 

In his Time interview, Mr. Trump said he “would not rule out” building new migrant detention camps, but “there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them, because of the fact that we’re going to be moving [migrants] out.” Yet if elected, he would face hurdles quickening the pace of certain deportation processes. 

Many deportations rely on orders from immigration court, a system long under strain. The immigration court backlog holds some 3.7 million active cases, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Meanwhile, the government employs around 700 immigration judges.

In addition to more judges, the system also needs more support staff “to make sure you have a fully functioning, efficient immigration court,” says Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “Interpreters have to be ordered; documents have to have been submitted; attorneys have to be ready.”

How could a mass deportation plan impact U.S. citizens? 

For one, many unauthorized immigrants live with a spouse or children who do have a lawful status, or are even U.S. citizens. Deportation can lead to family separation and increased socioeconomic hardship in immigrant communities.  

Policy experts also argue that widespread deportations would disrupt the economy in significant ways, due to the contributions of unauthorized workers in sectors such as food and agriculture. Border security advocates, however, say crimes linked to unauthorized immigrants can be prevented by swifter deportations.

Some analysts also worry that more lawfully present residents could become ensnared in a deportation dragnet already known for error. At Northwestern University’s Deportation Research Clinic, Jacqueline Stevens estimates that 1% of removal cases involve U.S. citizens.

“If U.S. citizens are being unlawfully detained and deported, that tells us a lot about how everybody else is being treated,” says Professor Stevens, founding director of the center. She says one safeguard could be securing the right to free counsel in immigration court, which only handles civil cases.

Major, lasting overhauls to the immigration system typically come from Congress, which hasn’t united on such measures since the 1990s. If gridlock on Capitol Hill continues, the next president – from either party – may resort to more executive action on unauthorized immigrants.

Read these companion articles:

Deportation 101: How removing people from the US really works
Deportation sounds like a straightforward term, but it’s complicated in practice. Here’s context for understanding the rise in deportations under President Joe Biden and Republican proposals calling for more.

How Biden and Trump compare on border crossings and immigration
Immigration is a top issue in the U.S. presidential race amid questions about the pace of illegal border crossings and candidate track records. Here’s what the available data tells us.