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mass deportations
DHS ‘100 Million Deportations’ Claim Was No Joke. Bovino Had ‘Master Plan’ to Purge Nearly a Third of the Country
This month, a GOP senator accused an immigration researcher of “hyperbole” for saying the Department of Homeland Security was advocating “ethnic cleansing” with its calls to expel 100 million people.
Mar 26, 2026
When the official social media account for the US Department of Homeland Security made a post glorifying the idea of “100 million deportations," it was dismissed by many as a joke, while those who said it amounted to a call for ”ethnic cleansing“ were accused of ”hyperbole.“
But the man who once led President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign says he was always dead serious about purging nearly a third of the country’s population.
On Tuesday, The New York Times published an interview with Gregory Bovino, the former “commander-at-large” of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, who was unceremoniously demoted back to his old post in El Centro, California this January, after immigration agents’ rampage across Minnesota—which included the public executions of two American citizens—ignited nationwide backlash.
Bovino, who is retiring this week at the age of 55, told the Times he had few regrets about his tenure leading the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which were marked by rampant racial profiling, large indiscriminate roundups, violations of civil liberties, and violent attacks on peaceful protesters.
But he wishes he had gone much further. According to the Times:
Mr. Bovino said he had a master plan that was in motion before his exile back to El Centro. It would have neutralized protesters, he said, and made it possible to deport 100 million people.
That is a goal that the Department of Homeland Security has widely promoted. If it sounds extreme, that’s because it’s nearly 10 times the estimated number of undocumented people in the country. It is also more than a quarter of the entire US population.
As Common Dreams reported back in late December, when DHS posted a meme about "100 million deportations," that number bears striking significance, since it was close to the number of people living in the US who identified as non-white on the 2020 census—about 96 million.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, it's also approximately the number of foreign-born people and their children, which was about 97.2 million as of 2024.
There are about 47 million foreign-born people living in the US, meaning that such a policy would also entail the deportation of around 53 million US-born citizens.
While Bovino and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have lost their jobs, it's unclear whether the new head of DHS, Secretary Markwayne Mullin, will join the push to expel 100 million people from the US.
The Times provided little exposition about how precisely Bovino planned to carry out what would be by far the largest campaign of forced displacement in American, if not world, history.
However, the article demonstrates that the idea was not simply a troll post by a social media intern, but a sincere objective for a man who answered directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security and was elevated to the position of America’s most powerful immigration enforcer.
Bovino's admission of this goal was of particular note to David J. Bier, an immigration researcher at the Cato Institute and a prominent critic of Trump's immigration policy. He discussed the "100 million deportations" goal earlier this month during a Senate Budget Committee hearing.
DHS's post came up after Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) attempted to discredit Bier by reading off supposedly "hyperbolic" posts he'd made on social media, including one accusing Republicans of thinking "they can troll their way into us accepting ethnic cleansing."
Bier responded that his post was "in regard to a Department of Homeland Security post about 100 million deportations. That is what DHS has tweeted from their account."
As Kennedy attempted to shout over Bier, the researcher said: "100 million deportations would be ethnic cleansing. You would be removing one-third of the country."
"And you don't think this is hyperbolic?" Kennedy interrupted, smirking. The senator brought up another of Bier's posts in which he claimed Trump was carrying out a "population purge agenda," adding sarcastically, "No hyperbole there!"
“When I talk about ‘population purge,’ I’m talking about the fact that they’re trying to deport US-born citizens, people born here,” Bier responded. “They are trying to deport them as well. So it’s not a ‘mass deportation' agenda. It’s also an agenda intended to reduce the population of the United States, including US-born citizens. So these are not ‘hyperbolic’ statements.”
Kennedy ignored Bier's argument, instead derisively asking "what planet" he was from and saying he triggered his "gag reflex." It is not clear if Kennedy was aware of Trump's frequent calls to "denaturalize" American citizens or his administration's efforts to eliminate the constitutional provision of birthright citizenship.
The Houston-based immigration attorney Steven Brown said that Bovino’s apparent “master plan” was “exactly what Bier testified about, since 100 million deportations would expel ”one-third of the US population and would necessitate citizens being deported to accomplish.“
Jessica Riedl, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the idea "just dangerously insane," and something out of "white supremacist fan fiction."
"These are the armed fanatics who were given police power in our cities," she added.
Noting that many of the commenters who replied to his posts expressed support for the idea, Bier warned that "DHS's 100 million deportations ethnic cleansing agenda is spreading throughout the right-wing echo chamber as it is intended. It is only a matter of time before this extremism becomes standard rhetoric for GOP candidates."
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ICE Deporting Parents Without Allowing Them to Bring or Find Care for Children: Report
Federal immigration agents are required to allow parents to "make alternative care arrangements" for their children before they're detained.
Mar 19, 2026
The Trump administration's directive to federal immigration agents on the detention and deportation of parents of minor children is clear: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents must accommodate a parent's "efforts to make alternative care arrangements for their minor child(ren) prior to detention."
But a report released Wednesday by the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reveals that many parents, including dozens whom the groups interviewed at deportee reception centers in Honduras, have been forced to quickly leave their children in the "informal care" of friends, relatives, or even babysitters—many of whom are also vulnerable to deportation under the Trump administration—leaving them in precarious situations while traumatizing both parents and children.
According to the recently deported parents the group's researchers interviewed—many of whom reported symptoms associated with psychological trauma, such as an inability to eat or sleep, physical pain, and "acute emotional distress" with "uncontrollable crying and visible panic"—ICE agents frequently did not follow the agency's own guidelines to ask anyone they arrest whether they have children and to give parents an opportunity to take their children with them.
"They didn’t ask me anything," said one 22-year-old mother of a two-year-old. "They didn’t talk to me, only to yell at me, to humiliate. They never said: ‘You have a daughter, you can bring her,’ because I would have brought [my daughter], she is very attached to me."
Some parents told the researchers they had been ignored when they told arresting officers that they had children. One mother had three of her children with her when she was detained outside a hospital where she had gone to a medical appointment, and her three other children were at home. She was "dismissed" when she told the officers about her other children, and the family was separated.
Parents told researchers about being forced to abruptly leave their children in precarious situations—or even entirely alone.
A father who was arrested after leaving his three-year-old daughter with a babysitter said he begged the federal agents to allow him to go inside and tell the caretaker what was happening; his wife had already been detained.
"They didn’t ask me anything. They didn’t talk to me, only to yell at me, to humiliate. They never said: ‘You have a daughter, you can bring her,’ because I would have brought [my daughter], she is very attached to me."
“They just kept yelling at me to get on the ground,” he told the researchers. “I tried to get away but they threw me to the ground and wouldn’t let me say anything. They beat me really badly.”
The babysitter stayed with the child for 11 days when the father didn't return home.
A mother whose husband had previously been deported was forced to leave her four children entirely alone until their grandmother could get to them from out-of-state.
Michele Heisler, a physician with PHR, told The Guardian Thursday that ICE's refusal to follow its own directives on detaining parents "is going to create a really high burden of mental health distress."
“For a toddler, they are left with a sense of abandonment that’s kind of imprinted,” she said. “It’s hard for all of us to understand why there is this gratuitous level of cruelty happening."
DHS has repeatedly claimed that it does not separate children from their parents despite numerous reports showing otherwise.
The Trump administration weakened its protections for families in its "Detained Parents Directive" last year, eliminating a guideline that stipulated ICE agents must take into consideration whether or not an individual is a parent or legal guardian when deciding whether to detain or deport them at all.
But agents are still required to allow parents to bring their children if they are deported, and to decide what happens to their children when they are detained or removed from the country.
WRC and PHR called on Congress to codify parental interest protections, including a right to reunification with their children before and after deportation. They also urged Congress to require ICE to coordinate with state child welfare agencies to facilitate reunification and to require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to appoint a national coordinator on child welfare.
DHS appropriations bills must prevent "ICE, CBP, and other immigration agencies from using any appropriated funds for enforcement that violates laws or DHS policy pertaining to family separation, specifically the Detained Parents Directive."
Democrats in the Senate have vowed to block funding for ICE and other DHS agencies until the Trump administration agrees to immigration enforcement reforms, with the demands mainly relating to federal agents wearing masks during enforcement operations and entering private property without judicial warrants.
The report released Wednesday warned that the "scope and scale of these types of family separations is likely to worsen" as the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—the law that provided $170 billion for immigration enforcement—are "fully realized" in the coming months.
WRC and PHR said they "aim to prevent further family separations and reunify separated families by documenting systemic violations of existing family unity policies, identifying reforms to protect children and parents, and working with receiving countries like Honduras to establish systems to ensure prompt reunification of separated families."
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Expert Explains in Fiery Hearing How Trump's Mass Deportation Agenda Is Actually a 'Population Purge'
Republican Sen. John Kennedy scoffed as David J. Bier of the Cato Institute outlined how the Trump administration has openly demanded "ethnic cleansing" through the deportation of 100 million people.
Mar 11, 2026
A Republican senator on Tuesday accused an immigration policy expert of "hyperbole" in his condemnation of President Donald Trump's anti-immigration agenda during a hearing—but the witness, David J. Bier of the libertarian Cato Institute, emphasized that the administration's own words and policies have clearly pointed to a goal of expelling millions of citizens from the United States.
At a hearing on sanctuary cities held by the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) read a post Bier wrote on social media in December 2025 in which he said Trump administration officials "think they can troll their way into us accepting ethnic cleansing," suggesting it was one of many "hyperbolic statements" that discredit Bier.
Bier, the director of immigration studies for the Cato Institute, has spent the past year tracking the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda, in which a majority of people who have been detained have had no criminal convictions, despite the White House's persistent claims it is targeting "the worst of the worst" violent criminals.
He was unfazed by Kennedy's questioning, quickly replying that his comment was in response to a social media post by the Department of Homeland Security's official account in which the agency shared an image of a Cadillac on a beach, featuring the message, "America after 100 million deportations."
"That was in regard to a Department of Homeland Security post about advocating 100 million deportations," said Bier as the senator attempted to talk over him. "One hundred million deportations would be ethnic cleansing. You would be removing one-third of country."
This exchange between David Bier and Sen Foghorn Leghorn (R-LA) is something else. Kennedy thinks he has him in three separate gotcha moments, but not so fast Bier had his number. The clip is a bit long but it’s 3 minutes of Kennedy getting owned. Watch👇pic.twitter.com/HPHicyUcl1
— Brian Cardone 🏴☠️🇺🇦 (@cardon_brian) March 10, 2026
Kennedy didn't respond, instead reading a post Bier wrote on March 2 which said: "If you rule against Trump's population purge agenda... the nativists will name you, threaten you, and come after you. These judges are much braver than the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents who hide behind masks while violating the Constitution."
Bier stood by his defense of judges; his post had been in reference to a "60 Minutes" interview given by US District Judge John Coughenour, who described a hoax in which law enforcement showed up at his house after getting a report that he had murdered his wife. He also received a bomb threat, with both incidents taking place after he ruled against Trump's executive order aimed at ending the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship.
The Cato expert also defended his reference to a "population purge," saying: "I'm talking about the fact that they're trying to deport US citizens, people born here. They are trying to deport them as well. So it's not a 'mass deportation agenda.' It is also an agenda intended to reduce the population of the United States."
"These are not hyperbolic statements," he said as Kennedy hurled insults at Bier, asking "what planet" he was from and telling him he triggered the senator's "gag reflex" before being cut off by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Kennedy also accused Bier of making a "hyperbolic statement" on February 11, when he posted on the social media platform Bluesky that in addition to advising US military officers to refuse to carry out illegal orders, Democratic members of Congress should warn them "to refuse unethical orders."
Bier readily defended his remark, asking Kennedy: "Do you disagree with it? You think people should do unethical things?" The senator didn't respond.
It was unclear whether Kennedy was unfamiliar with the president's plan to strip people of their US citizenship—one of the first efforts of his second term, with the executive order signed just after he took office—or if he was simply "looking for fundraising sound bites," as one Cato Institute staffer posited.
Bier said Wednesday that it was the second time in a month that Kennedy has appeared "shocked" to learn about the policies of the president he has supported for nearly a decade.
"Just a month earlier I had explained to him how the Trump administration has already banned HALF of all legal immigrants to the US," said Bier, pointing to his testimony from February in which he explained how the White House has suspended immigrant visas and US Citizenship and Immigration Services benefit applications.
Listen to how shocked Senator Kennedy was. I should've clarified more how it's actually three different overlapping policies (the presidential visa ban, the USCIS benefits suspension, and the State Dept immigrant visa suspension) leading to the theft from applicants. pic.twitter.com/SZh4PMzc6j
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) February 11, 2026
The hearing on sanctuary cities was subtitled "The Cost of Undermining Law and Order," but Bier focused his testimony on the Cato Institute's extensive research that's found immigration has reduced government deficits by at least $14.5 trillion over the last 30 years.
"I was invited to the Budget Committee because of this comprehensive study Cato published, not to discuss random tweets," said Bier. "The Democrats all wanted to talk substance. The other side name-called. Incredible contrast."
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