Trump Administration Bends U.S. Government in Extraordinary Ways towards Aim of Mass Deportations

Invoking the specter of “invasion,” the Trump administration has set out to build a fundamentally new, all-of-government machinery to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations of resident unauthorized immigrants and new irregular arrivals.

To carry out this enterprise, the administration has enlisted federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that have previously never played significant roles—or any, in the case of the IRS—in immigration enforcement. It also has directed other federal law enforcement entities, including prosecutors, to prioritize deportations. And it has significantly increased the military’s involvement by deploying sizeable numbers of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, for the first time using military aircraft to carry out deportation flights, and, also in a first, detaining noncitizens arrested inside the United States at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Reaching beyond the federal ambit, the administration is also doubling down on its pressure on state and local authorities to conduct immigration enforcement actions traditionally reserved for federal agents, and is seeking or threatening to penalize those that offer resistance. And it has made cooperation on immigration a high priority in foreign affairs, taking an iron-fist approach to negotiations with foreign counterparts. Facing U.S. threats to impose tariffs, end foreign assistance, and take over the Panama Canal, Mexico and a number of other Latin American countries have agreed to implement migration controls, with some also agreeing to hold third-country nationals removed from the United States. So far, these countries have sought to appease the Trump administration, but policy implementation has been measured and strategic. Mexico, for example, has refused to accept deportees arriving on military planes and has also threatened reciprocal tariffs on U.S. imports should the Trump administration impose tariffs as early as March 4.

Finally, the administration has achieved something that several of its predecessors could not: Getting Congress to act on immigration legislation. The White House scored a victory when, within a few days of the inauguration, Congress in a bipartisan fashion passed the Laken Riley Act, the first stand-alone immigration legislation in nearly two decades. The law dramatically increases mandatory detention of noncitizens accused of certain criminal offenses.

The orchestrated, whole-of-government machinery displayed by this administration in its first month—accompanied by a muscular, carefully crafted messaging campaign—has the closest parallels with the actions that occurred in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when broad swaths of the federal government were repurposed to serve the national security mission. The fundamental difference is that post-9/11 actions were a response to an actual attack on U.S. soil, whereas today’s rhetoric of “invasion” and the arrival of foreign “military-age” men intent on building an “army” is not matched by reality. While encounters of asylum seekers and other migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border reached record levels in fiscal year (FY) 2021 and FY 2022, there is no evidence so far of a significant threat to national security or general public safety. And, in fact, irregular crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border significantly declined during 2024, and in particular during the latter half of the calendar year.

This article provides an overview of how the Trump administration, in its second term, is seeking to build an entirely new deportation machinery. It puts the recent changes in context and explores challenges the administration is already starting to face, particularly in finite resources and detention capacity.

Restructuring the Deportation Machinery

After promising quick mass deportations on the campaign trail, Trump has rapidly laid the groundwork for ramping up—and restructuring—the government’s already expansive deportation machinery. As the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) reported in 2013, the federal government already was spending more money on immigration enforcement than all other principal federal law enforcement agencies combined. Building from that base, the Trump team’s approach involves a multipronged effort that newly leverages vast federal resources, alters long-term policies, and engages local and state authorities domestically as well as regional governments abroad. Though still in their nascent stages, the sweeping changes implemented during the first month of the administration place immigration enforcement front and center for all U.S. government priorities.

Immigration Enforcement Is Now Every Agency’s Priority

The administration has expanded immigration enforcement mandates to government agencies beyond those in the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice, where federal immigration enforcement has long centered. Just days after the inauguration, acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a memo to the DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service extending the “functions of an immigration officer” to the officers of these agencies to help in immigration investigations, operations, and deportations. The Bureau of Prisons has also been deputized to assist with additional detention space. These agencies previously played a very narrow role in immigration enforcement, typically limited to cases involving fugitives or those charged with drug crimes.

In a completely unprecedented move, the administration has also recruited arms of government previously detached from immigration functions. On February 7, DHS sent a memo directing that agents from the IRS criminal investigation division be reassigned to immigration enforcement; these agents are now tasked with conducting noncitizen arrests, detentions, and deportations. In a similar vein, on February 20, DHS sent a memo deputizing 600 State Department special agents to assist with arrests and deportations. As of this writing, it is unclear whether and how these officials are being used.

Expanded Use of the U.S. Military

Through an executive order issued on his first day in office, Trump repositioned the military to assist with immigration efforts, initially ordering the deployment of 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, though the full deployment has not yet been realized. Given that authorities’ encounters of irregularly arriving migrants are now lower than they have been in years—the 29,000 encounters that occurred in January were the fewest since May 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic—it is unclear what role this additional personnel will play. DHS this week noted that single-day border apprehensions hit a 15-year low on February 22, with just 200 encounters across the entire nearly 2,000-mile border.

In a high-profile and controversial move, the administration has also used military planes to carry out deportations to Ecuador, Guatemala, India, and Peru. This represents the first-ever use of U.S. military aircraft to carry out deportations. Use of military planes costs significantly more per returnee than the charter flights that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) normally uses. They can also carry fewer people: usually 80 compared to more than 100 on a standard chartered flight.

Additionally, use of military aircraft contributed to early rifts with foreign counterparts. Colombia refused to accept deportees on two military flights, causing Trump to quickly threaten to impose tariffs and visa restrictions; the dispute was resolved when Colombia’s president sent the country’s own planes to repatriate the returnees. Some countries, such as Mexico, do not accept U.S. military deportation flights, and Mexico will not permit U.S. military aircraft in its airspace, requiring flights around Mexico that are nearly double in length to reach northern Central America.

The administration’s use of military C-17 cargo planes, presumably for messaging purposes to deter would-be migrants and project U.S. strength, has been accompanied by significant video and images of returnees marching onto and off the planes in shackles. Though this has long been standard ICE practice, it has not previously been publicized to the current degree. These images and reports about harsh treatment—including keeping returnees shackled for an entire 40-hour flight to India—have garnered global press attention and sparked political protests in India.

Detentions at Guantanamo and Other Venues

As it seeks to arrest and deport more noncitizens, the administration is also tapping nontraditional venues to increase detention space, including more private detention facilities, re-fitting soft-sided facilities used by the Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border for longer-term detention, federal prisons, and military bases including the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay. The Guantanamo facility, best known for housing 9/11 terrorism suspects, had since 1991 been used for temporarily holding migrants intercepted at sea—but never for noncitizens arrested within the U.S. interior. The administration has indicated it intends to detain up to 30,000 noncitizens there.

The migrant operations center at Guantanamo currently has capacity for 130, though other sections have reportedly been used—including the Camp 6 prison building formerly used for al Qaeda suspects. The number of terrorism detainees at Guantanamo has meanwhile shrunk over the years, as the majority of the approximately 780 men held at the facility have been repatriated to their origin countries or other destinations; only 15 remained as of this writing. Thus far, Guantanamo has been used as a temporary holding venue for repatriation, and the administration has signaled that it will continue to use it as such. 

Enlisting States and Localities as Force Multipliers

The administration has also extended its immigration enforcement reach well beyond federal agencies. In January, DHS issued a memo requesting state and local law enforcement assist with immigration enforcement due to the “mass influx of aliens.” The first such law enforcement agreement is with the Texas National Guard, which can now make immigration arrests, though the terms of the agreement require contact or supervision with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at all times. ICE has in the past relied on local law enforcement cooperation through instruments such as 287(g) agreements, which deputize trained state and local personnel to enforce aspects of federal immigration law. Currently, ICE has 155 287(g) agreements with law enforcement agencies around the country; an additional 56 were pending approval as of this writing (see Figure 1).

Since some states and localities have been reluctant to fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, given their resource constraints and concerns about public safety, the administration has begun targeting these “sanctuary” jurisdictions. The day after the inauguration, the Justice Department established a Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group and reassigned many officials to identify state and local limits on cooperation and challenge them in court. A February 5 department memo directs the federal government to investigate sanctuary jurisdictions and potentially withhold funding if they are found to not be in compliance with federal immigration laws. And on her first day as attorney general, Pam Bondi sued Illinois and Chicago on grounds they are obstructing federal immigration enforcement measures; several states have already countersued. Bondi filed a second lawsuit against the state of New York a week later. On a parallel track, on January 27, House Oversight and Government Accountability Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) launched an investigation into sanctuary jurisdictions.

And in an unprecedented use of federal prosecutorial power, the Justice Department has sought to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in order to grant him leeway to assist on immigration enforcement and other matters, prompting several federal prosecutors to resign in protest over what then-acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon claimed was “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of [Adams’s] case;” Adams and the federal government have denied a quid pro quo. Border “czar” Tom Homan has threatened to prosecute or jail the mayors of Chicago and Denver if they do not assist the enforcement effort, and earlier this month suggested that individuals who educate people about their rights regarding immigration enforcement—including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)—are illegally impeding federal efforts. To force jurisdictions’ compliance, the Departments of Transportation and Justice have threatened to withhold federal funds from states and localities with sanctuary policies, and the Small Business Administration (SBA) is planning to relocate regional offices out of sanctuary cities. These threats could force states and localities to grapple with tough fiscal realities.

No Holds Barred for Interior Enforcement

Among the new administration’s earliest actions were rescinding guidelines for ICE operations, including those directing when prosecutorial discretion can be used, as well as barring ICE agents from launching operations in sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship without judicial warrants, and at courthouses. During the Biden administration, ICE agents were told to assess the totality of an individual’s circumstances (including their length of stay in the United States and whether they had dependents or a criminal history) before taking action. Today, that assessment is no longer required. While the Trump administration says it is prioritizing the removal of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, Homan and others have made clear that all unauthorized individuals are subject to arrest and removal. Just 29 percent of people in ICE detention as of mid-February had a criminal conviction.

The administration also has expanded expedited removal, a process by which certain noncitizens can be arrested and removed without needing to go through a lengthy immigration court process. Previously, expedited removal could only be used within 100 miles of a U.S. border for a person in the country for less than 14 days; now, it can be used anywhere and applies to those who have been in the United States for up to two years.

Moreover, the Laken Riley Act, the first bill Trump signed into law in his second term, requires the mandatory detention of unauthorized noncitizens who have been accused (but not necessarily convicted) of committing some low-level crimes, including petty theft and shoplifting. It also allows state attorneys general to sue if they believe the federal government is not meeting detention mandates. This law will vastly increase the space needed for detaining noncitizens beyond the current allocation of about 41,000 beds. In a letter to Congress in December 2024, then-ICE leadership voiced concerns that it would be impossible to meet this mandate with current resources (see more on capacity challenges below).

Global Efforts

The final prong of the Trump restructuring of the deportation machinery is in the foreign policy realm. During his first trip abroad as secretary of state, Marco Rubio went to four Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. His focus was to negotiate that these countries act as “lily pads” to receive third-country nationals such as Venezuelans, whom the United States is generally unable to return to their origin country due to limited or frosty diplomatic ties.

Panama has already accepted several hundred non-Panamanian deportees to Panama, with many brought to a camp in the Darien Province, under a deal with the U.S. government. A similar agreement has been set up with Costa Rica, which in recent weeks has received nearly 200 deportees, mainly from Asian and African countries.  Though no formal agreements are yet in place, Ecuador and Guatemala appear to have agreed to accept third-country returnees, in order to detain and ultimately deport them to their origin countries. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele went a step further, offering to incarcerate U.S. deportees with criminal records—and even U.S.-citizen criminals—in his country’s maximum-security prisons; Rubio received this offer with interest but said it would require more examination.

As in its first term, the Trump administration is seeking to pressure countries that resist return of their nationals, including with threats of visa sanctions. These “recalcitrant” countries, as the U.S. government calls them, have long been a problem for U.S. immigration enforcement and a priority for several administrations. The Biden administration, for instance, successfully negotiated with many countries to accept the return of their nationals and brokered a deal with China, which was long unwilling to accept any returns. Venezuela, a top country of origin for recently arrived migrants lacking legal status, has only sporadically accepted deportees directly from the United States. After not accepting deportees aside from a brief period between October 2023 and January 2024, in early February Venezuela relented and sent two flights to Fort Bliss, Texas, to pick up 190 nationals.

To prevent irregular migrants from reaching the United States in the first place, Trump swiftly followed through on his promise to pressure Canada and Mexico to step up their migration and drug interdiction enforcement. On February 1, he instituted 25 percent tariffs on both countries, quickly agreeing to pause them for 30 days to permit further negotiations. Since then, Mexico has committed to deploy 10,000 additional National Guard troops at its borders, and Canada has increased investment in border security initiatives and named a national fentanyl czar. How far and on what issues these countries will push back remains to be seen.

Mismatch of a Reshaped Agenda and Resources 

The Trump administration’s stated goal is to carry out mass deportations at a never-before-seen scale: 1 million a year. However, there are no additional resources to fund this effort, a mismatch that is already causing hiccups for the administration’s ambitions. While the use of Guantanamo Bay, other military bases, and federal prisons are clearly intended to overcome the detention space constraint, these facilities will take time to become fully operational.

Even if detention capacity increases, ICE still must comply with long-established standards, including providing detainees access to medical care, safe and sanitary conditions, and services in a language with which they are proficient. For children, ICE must also comply with standards set in the settlement of the Reno v. Flores Supreme Court case decided in 1993, including the use of licensed facilities equipped to hold children and meet their needs; prevent separation of families, provide essential services such as education and medical care, and seek to promptly release them from federal custody.

Early in the administration, ICE reportedly increased arrests from the 300 daily average during the Biden years to an average of 1,000 per day, quickly filling detention space. These early arrests were highly publicized, with ICE even posting daily arrest numbers on X (formerly known as Twitter). However, facing detention and deportation constraints, the pace of arrests quickly slowed, much to the administration’s chagrin. According to reports, ICE conducted 8,000 arrests in the first two weeks, indicating that the initial average of 1,000 per day quickly tapered off. Acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello was reassigned on February 21, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has accused the FBI of leaking information about ICE operations.

Absent more rapid deportations, which does not appear to be the case yet, ICE detention capacity will continue to present an obstacle. Though DHS has not issued official numbers, Reuters has reported that fewer than 38,000 noncitizens were deported in the administration’s first month, far fewer than the Biden administration’s FY 2024 monthly average of 57,000.

There are other countervailing issues for the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans. Directing government agencies to prioritize immigration enforcement over their core missions and deputizing state and local law enforcement could come with unintended consequences and critical opportunity costs. At the state and local level, adding immigration enforcement to law enforcement’s already significant workload could distract from other public safety efforts. Already, sheriffs in various localities have voiced opposition to the administration’s directive—though others have been quick to sign on. At the national level, the administration has a vast domestic and foreign policy agenda beyond immigration. Reallocating finite resources and staff leaves less capacity to perform other critical governmental functions that have deep impacts on people’s lives. It is also unclear how changes elsewhere in the government may affect irregular migration, especially the elimination of legal pathways by halting refugee resettlement and closing down the Safe Mobility Offices throughout Latin America, all but shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and depleting funding for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) amid a freeze on foreign aid.

As Congress prepares another major spending package, a top priority of many lawmakers and the administration is to secure vast increases in immigration enforcement funding. Homan and other Trump officials have gone to Capitol Hill to pressure Congress for $175 billion in immigration enforcement funding—a vast sum that was recently included in the Senate’s $340 billion spending blueprint. In the meantime, the House has a very different spending bill, aiming to extend Trump tax cuts and limit other spending while also increasing funds for immigration enforcement. Budget negotiations have a long road ahead, made even more pertinent by the impending government shutdown on March 14. But the scale of these budgetary requests for immigration enforcement establishes the paramount importance of increased funding for the administration’s agenda. For example, the entire FY 2024 ICE budget was about $9 billion and the U.S. government spent $187 billion on immigration enforcement for the entire period from FY 1986 through FY 2012.  

An Uncharted Path Forward

The Trump administration, which has made mass deportations its single most important goal, is clearly exploring all possible means to achieve its targets. This includes the deportations themselves as well as a highly visible PR campaign, budgeted at $200 million, to deter future irregular arrivals and instill fear in the resident unauthorized population in hopes of encouraging them to “self-deport.”

The breadth and intensity of changes carried out in the administration’s first few weeks have intentionally flooded the zone and set the stage for what could be an immense redirection of government focus and resources that shapes a new and enduring deportation machinery. The use of military C-17s, video of shackled returnees, and footage of ICE operations in U.S. cities all present a muscular show of force. While the early results may be more performative than representing a new era of record arrests and removals, the changes over time could fundamentally shift immigration enforcement within the country from being solely the domain of DHS and the Justice Department to that of a constellation of other federal agencies, states, and localities.  

These on-the-ground changes are accompanied by a critical shift in narrative, with immigration writ large—all forms of permanent and temporary legal immigration alongside unauthorized arrivals—now seen by the federal government principally through the lens of “invasion.” As the barrage of changes continues, it is also important to note that this lens is largely unfounded. Three-quarters of immigrants in the United States are either naturalized citizens or legally present, and the vast majority of immigrants of all legal statuses are law-abiding. Despite the rhetoric that all unauthorized immigrants are criminals, it is worth noting most border crossers’ only criminal offense is unauthorized entry. 

Yet the vast new deportation machinery is far more than simply rhetorical. With single-minded focus on mass deportations, virtually all agencies of the U.S. government have been bent to achieve that aim. It will take time to see whether the goals this administration has set for itself can be met-–and at what price, in terms of tradeoffs with the core functions of government, societal cohesion, the longstanding division between federal and state authorities, and the United States’ relationships with other countries. Importantly, the remarkable swiftness with which the new machinery has been built has an inherent weakness: It is founded on a narrative of a country facing an invasion. Thus, public support for the deportation machinery may wane if its underlying rationale appears more and more illusory.

The authors thank Alejandro Urbino-Bernal for his research assistance.

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