Time and Again, Mass Deportations Have Failed—Trump’s Plans Will Be No Different

When a student in the 2000s, I was actively involved in immigrant raid response efforts that churches, labor unions, and community groups organized to mitigate the effects of then-President George W. Bush’s nationwide enforcement actions.

We took resources like clothes, food, and money to affected families in the states of Minnesota and Iowa, and conducted “Know Your Rights Trainings” for undocumented workers on what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents went to their homes.

Since then, we have learned two things.

First is that enforcement actions, that is, arresting, detaining, and deporting people en masse, fail to stem the flow of undocumented migrants coming into the U.S. The Bush-era deportation machine didn’t stop the flow of people coming north, the lack of opportunities due to the 2007-08 financial crisis did. Deportations during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term paralleled what Bush did, but failed to reach Obama-era levels in terms of numbers. Still, Covid-19—not mass arrests—caused the drop in border crossings, illegal and legal. Crossings picked up post-pandemic with political and economic disasters in Central America and Venezuela driving people north.

How will it look with soldiers in camouflage arresting middle-aged workers picking lettuce?

The second thing we learned is how to play defense.

More to the point—in addition to remembering how to prepare immigrant communities for raids, groups like those I was part of grew to include politicians and lawyers who over the years generated sanctuary ordinances around the country that proved effective the first time Trump was in power. Accordingly, the tools for Trump’s mass deportation plan are well-known and his fantasy of addressing our ongoing immigration crisis by amping up arrests will fail.

Before parsing details, let’s make one thing clear—Trump’s immigration policies are mostly about generating fear, with little by way of serious substance. Just listen to incoming “Border Czar,” former ICE director Tom Homan, who promised “shock and awe”—the phrase used to inaugurate the U.S. war of aggression on Iraq in 2003—to describe the incoming administration’s approach to immigration policy.

Bombast and terror aside, we can expect that Biden-era policies like humanitarian parole for asylees from Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela will be revoked. Restrictions on ICE concerning arrest priorities will also be lifted, like Trump did when he was first president. The president-elect has already said that his “Remain in Mexico” policy will return, which, for anyone trying to enter the United States to seek asylum, means that they cannot reside within the country while awaiting a court date. Trump will also seek resources from Congress to build a nonsensical wall that people desperately trying to get into the United States will either scale, dig under, or run around. Resources will also be sought for hiring additional border patrol agents and ICE officers.

Of the many problems Trump’s deportation machine will face, let’s start with this last one—personnel. Put simply, people don’t want to do Trump’s bidding. Nothing has changed in this regard since 2017, when he ordered the hiring of 5,000 additional agents to patrol the border. In 2018, just 118 people answered the call.

There is also the price tag for arresting and deporting the nearly 12 million undocumented people in the U.S., with estimates placing the cost of mass deportation at over $315 billion, shrinking the economy in the process by between 4% and 7%. Unphased, Trump has said that mass deportations “have no price tag.”

Trump may learn to regret those words, as besides money, the government will have to expend considerable time.

The reason is that the U.S. is a federal system where states and cities can, and have, created sanctuary policies. These ordinances, which are popular with law enforcement, stipulate that local police do their day-to-day jobs of providing security without collaborating with federal immigration authorities to arrest and deport undocumented people. Practically for immigrant justice, sanctuary policies gum up the deportation machine, making the federal government do its job alone. Despite what ill-informed critics claim, instead of creating a climate of murder and mayhem, sanctuary jurisdictions allow local police to work with federal agents when a person commits a violent crime.

There is also the idea that the military will be called to detain undocumented migrants, as Trump has mentioned.

Here the fear campaign is on full display. I mean, it’s scary to think that soldiers would be turned on undocumented people who live all around the country. Yet, pausing to think this through, the military does not have any special information as to the whereabouts of migrants. So, are we to expect military vehicles driving up and down city streets, with soldiers pointing rifles at people they suspect of being in the country illegally? Will the army storm farms around the country and detain half of the essential workers without status who make the food system operate? How will it look with soldiers in camouflage arresting middle-aged workers picking lettuce?

Regardless of the extent that Trump pushes mass arrests, he will for sure whine and complain about sanctuary policies, threatening the politicians who uphold them like he did in his first term. And like his first term, many politicians will resist. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are already gearing up.

For those areas outside of sanctuary jurisdiction, arrests may increase. This happened during Trump’s first time in power, especially in places like Florida’s Miami Dade county that repealed its sanctuary policies.

Here, the problem is that immigration courts are woefully under-resourced, reporting a backlog of 3 million cases. Some believe that doubling the number of judges will help address these cases—but by 2032. Mass arrests will only further jam up the system. Meanwhile, immigration lawyers are skilled at defending their clients, taking the time to search for how people can change their status, for instance if people have suffered domestic abuse or witnessed a crime.

This will be the real result from Trump’s deportation plans—not mass removals of people, but massive time delays and wastes of both Americans’ time and money.

Still, what is most important in this discussion are our immigrant movement networks. Before and during Trump’s first term, this movement has built an underground railroad of sorts, connecting immigrants with churches, legal resources, and meals if needed. And more critical than things, this movement has for years provided that one thing that Trump and his lackeys are working so hard to wrest from migrant communities—hope. That is, hope that there will be a better day for migrants and their allies to press serious politicians about making real reforms instead of being terrorized and living in fear.

Until that day comes, we fight on.