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Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to institute a severe crackdown on illegal immigration and enact mass deportations on a scale never seen before. But while Trump’s administration has gone on to implement a hard-line approach, including unvetted removals of immigrants and visa revocations, deportation numbers have fallen short of the president’s lofty campaign goals.
Earlier this month, NBC News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported slightly more than 12,300 people from March 1 to March 28. In comparison, the agency deported 12,700 people during the same time period last year. The lower numbers are likely due to a decrease in illegal border crossings — in part a product of Trump’s draconian policies — which had accounted for many of the prior deportations.
Perhaps to shift focus away from any failures, the government is touting its enforcement efforts in new, typically unsettling, ways.. On Monday, the White House lawn was lined with signs featuring the photos of undocumented immigrants listing their alleged crimes. “We will hunt you down. You will face justice. You will be deported — and you will never set foot on American soil again. Oh, and your mugshot may just end up on a yard sign at the White House,” a post from an official government X account read.
The signs appeared to be part of a significant immigration push from the administration ahead of Trump’s 100th day in office on Wednesday. Trump is slated to sign an executive order requiring a list of sanctuary cities and states, jurisdictions the federal government has long targeted. Over the weekend, federal agents also conducted mass raids across multiple states, arresting more than 100 undocumented immigrants at an underground Colorado nightclub and nearly 800 people from multiple sites in Florida. And in an early morning press briefing Monday, border czar Tom Homan defended the federal government’s arrest of a Milwaukee judge last week and the recent deportation of American-citizen children alongside their undocumented parents. “If you choose to have a U.S.-citizen child knowing you’re in this country illegally, you put yourself in that position. You put your family in that position,” Homan said.
But the tough rhetoric and extralegal crackdowns aren’t winning over Americans, who appear to be souring on Trump’s immigration policies. A Washington Post–ABC News Ipsos poll released Friday found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 46 percent approve. Additionally, the poll found that 42 percent of respondents said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father and husband deported to El Salvador despite his protected status, should be returned to the United States. Only 26 percent of Americans said he should remain imprisoned in El Salvador.
