Trump’s Mass Deportation Promise? More Reality TV Than Reality
For all the fiery rhetoric and executive orders, Trump’s mass deportation campaign is more about optics than outcomes-leaving his base with a spectacle, not a solution.
For all the fiery rhetoric and executive orders, Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has turned out to be more theater than policy.
This is something most Trump supporters don’t want to admit.
"On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out," Trump said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in the final days of his presidential campaign. "I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible."
Many immigration restriction supporters had their hopes up in anticipation of a concerted effort to greatly reduce the number of illegal aliens residing in the United States. Per figures from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), there are 18.6 million living in the United States. However, these figures may underestimate the reality, as Ann Coulter argues the true number of illegal aliens in the United States could be closer to 30 million.
Deporting such a large number of illegal aliens is no easy feat. Ever the consummate showman, Trump made sure to tap into the grievances of his electorate by launching several high profile deportation campaigns in the first weeks of his second presidential term. TV host Dr. Phil McGraw, who endorsed Donald Trump in the last election cycle, joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Chicago for a high-profile deportation operation. He initially claimed to have participated in the arrest of nearly 1,000 individuals across the United States but later clarified that ICE was targeting 270 “high-value” individuals.
Dr. Phil’s presence during these operations served to dramatize and publicize the administration’s deportation efforts, turning law enforcement activities into media spectacles. Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan, who promised a “shock and awe” approach to immigration restriction, provided commentary for Dr. Phil’s pre-recorded segment on Merit Street Media defending the administration’s enforcement strategy. Homan asserted that ICE was targeting “known criminals and terrorists” rather than carry out broad-based sweeps, framing the operation as a “worst, first” approach.
Homan has also talked about resuming workplace raids and family detentions. Border Czar’s media appearances and rhetoric have been designed to create a sense of urgency and spectacle around the deportation efforts.
This spectacle continued in March when the Trump administration carried out deportations of members of the Venezuela Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang. TDA was initially designated as a foreign terrorist organization on January 20, 2025 via an executive order signed by Donald Trump.
On March 15, 2025, President Trump would subsequently invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport individuals suspected of being members of TDA. This rarely used wartime law allowed for the deportation of non-citizens without due process. The administration quickly began deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they would be detained at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Key events included the deportation of over 200 Venezuelans on three separate flights to El Salvador, carried out despite a federal judge’s order to halt the removals.The deportations were widely broadcast across social media. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted a video on Twitter showing the arrival of 238 members of Tren de Aragua. The footage showed men disembarking from planes onto a tarmac lined with officers decked out in riot gear, their heads and ankles shackled. Other clips captured the detainees being transported in a large convoy of police and military vehicles en route to prison. Additional images showed them having their heads shaved and changing into prison uniforms.
Unsurprisingly, both the Trump administration and the Salvadoran government leveraged these highly visual moments to project a hardline stance on immigration and gang crackdowns. Theatrics notwithstanding, the removal of all of the aforementioned illegal aliens are justified. Rational states would unquestionably be deporting these scum. However, the question of mass deportations and even remigration goes beyond criminal illegal aliens.
There are plenty of immigrants — illegal and legal — who are useful cogs in the multicultural machine that also have to go. And this cohort numbers in the tens of millions.
Many don’t want to hear this but there’s not much evidence demonstrating that Trump is carrying out the mass deportations he promised on the campaign trails.
Since assuming office in January 2025, the Trump administration has prioritized interior immigration enforcement, resulting in 23,000 arrests and 18,000 deportations in February 2025 alone. Daily deportation rates averaged approximately 600 individuals per day in mid-February, a figure lower than the 750 daily deportations carried out during the final months of the Biden administration. By April 28, Homeland Security officials claimed that over 151,000 illegal aliens were arrested and over 135,000 deportations were carried out since January 20. Although these numbers are better than nothing, they show that Trump, nor any of his rivals within the GOP or the Democratic side of the aisle, are serious about stopping immigration.
Broadly speaking, D.C is not deporting enough people. During Trump’s first term in office (2017-2021), 1.5 million deportations were recorded, falling short of Obama’s 3.06 million deportations, (2009–2016) and George W. Bush’s 2.01 million deportations (2001–2009). However, Trump’s first term deportation figures were better than Joe Biden’s lousy 1.1 million deportations during his time in office.
It remains to be seen if Trump will follow through with his bold mass deportation promise. Given how the U.S. is thoroughly captured by oligarchical interests, one can reasonably expect disappointment on the immigration front. Earlier this month, Trump signaled his willingness to allow illegal farmworkers to temporarily remain in the United States if farmers petitioned on their behalf, provided they later leave and return to the country legally.
Not a good sign to say the least.
At a time when America’s demographics are transforming for the worst, bold immigration restriction measures spanning from the implementation of E-Verify to enacting an immigration moratorium are of the utmost importance in the fight to preserve the country’s national identity. If we’re being brutally honest, expelling the tens of millions of illegal aliens in the United States may require militaristic action. We’ve reached a point of no return where traditional law enforcement action alone will not expel the hordes of interlopers roaming nationwide.
Unfortunately, a significant portion of the country’s military resources are dedicated. Having the over 170,000 troops overseas come back home and be placed at our border or carry out interior immigration enforcement would go a long way in fixing the country’s immigration problems. Alas, we live in an global consumer imperium where the exigencies of the empire are prioritized over the interests of the state-forming people of the United States aka White Europeans.
Performative politics will not save America; only a blood and soil nationalist movement striving for economic sovereignty can protect the nation’s White European heritage. The path forward demands a bold nationalist agenda that confronts both the corporate interests and subversive actors within the NGO landscape head-on. These are the actors culpable for the demographic destruction of our once great nation and must be dealt with summarily for order to be restored.
The current iteration of the Republican Party is not up to task to assume the mantle of civilizational defense. The time has come to carve out a different political course.
NEXT:
El Niño Speaks 10: The Case for Immigration Patriotism
José Niño and VDARE editor Peter Brimelow sit down to talk about the immigration restriction movement and the challenges it faces in 2022 and beyond.
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Look at the bright side, Jose. At that rate, Trump will have deported all 18.6 million illegals by his 37th year in office, in May of 2062.