Mass Deportation Is Happening

Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s commitment to mass deportation was never in question. They were always going to try it, however unfeasible a goal it is to forcibly expel 20 million people. Of course, such attempts were always going to run into problems with costs and logistical feasibility. By mid-June, ICE was $1 billion over their budget and claimed they would be out of money entirely within a month. Moreover, even with adequate funds, it takes time to hire and train new personnel. It takes time and resources to build up enough facilities to hold the people you want to deport. It takes time and vehicles to actually move those people out of the country. And of course, you have to have other countries that are willing to accept the people you are deporting.

The absolute lawlessness of ICE conduct for the past few months, even the increased escalation this June worried me less than a much earlier development—Trump’s deal with El Salvador. Last year, Radley Balko offered a nuts and bolts analysis of how mass deportation might work that was chilling. But he made clear that “Miller’s plan for the “efficient” mass removal of human beings will hit a major snag when deportees’ home countries stop accepting them.” The worry, therefore, was that when the Trump administration had millions, or merely hundreds of thousands, in camps, and nowhere to send them…they might decide there are more “efficient” means of disposing of them. 

Not to worry—instead, the administration will simply make deals with people like Bukele to imprison immigrants from anywhere. It’s not clear that this approach will actually scale, especially into the millions (never mind the tens of millions), but the groundwork has certainly been laid.

But now matters are proceeding further still. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has narrowly passed in the Senate and is heading back to the House. It has been a divisive and difficult piece of legislation for the GOP chamber majorities, but there is one aspect that, as far as I am aware, has not been a matter of controversy among them: the allocation of about $171 billion for immigration enforcement of various categories. ICE alone will receive $31 billion for “hiring, training, transportation, facilities and legal resources to carry out immigration enforcement and removals,” CBP will receive $12 billion “to expand workforce and purchase new vehicles and technology” and $45 billion will be allocated to “Expand capacity to detain immigrants taken into custody.” Just these three line items alone dwarf the $57.2 billion budget the Marine Corps requested for fiscal year 2026.

More than the money itself, this budget shows a commitment on the part of Congressional Republicans to support Trump’s mass deportation project, whatever it might take, even as popular support for it collapses. Before this, there was some ambiguity; many of the administration’s actions, from its purges on the executive branch to the impoundment of congressionally-mandated spending, seemed to rest chiefly on congressional inaction. The laws that Trump’s DHS are breaking are after all laws passed by Congress. But this bill will give the green light on Trump’s deportation activities to date, and provide a huge infusion of resources to the effort. Should ICE burn through this budget like they did their last one, odds are they’ll continue to find Congress a willing partner in supplying the funds they need.

Here in America, the two years between congressional elections is among the shortest intervals in the world for selecting national legislatures. Yet despite how soon Republican members of the House must consider the anger of their constituents, they are expanding an unpopular program that has only become less popular the more the public is exposed to it. And a lot can happen in just two years. For the millions abroad who will not receive lifesaving medicine, for the millions at home who will be directly terrorized by unidentified ICE agents, and for the hundreds of millions of Americans who will be subject to increasing surveillance and control—the period between our elections will feel quite long. The Trump trifecta likely cannot deport tens of millions in two years, but it can build up and fund agencies capable of doing so. What the new budget suggests is that the entire trifecta has not only the means, but also the will to do just that.

Featured image is a new immigrant detention center in Florida that is being marketed as "Alligator Alcatraz"