Since he began touting it on the campaign trail, the idea that President Donald Trump could enact “mass deportations”—totalling perhaps a million a year or more—has been criticized as a tall order. In his first term, Trump’s administration only carried out about 1.5 million removals total, well short of the yearly deportation rates set by the Obama administration.
Now, first-month deportations data obtained by Reuters shows Trump expelling immigrants at a slower rate than Joe Biden did last year, when the Democrat ramped up his deportation efforts. Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initially shared daily arrest counts on social media, with numbers approaching 1,000, but has since ceased the practice. Population counts in ICE detention under Trump 2.0 have increased from around 40,000 to around 41,000.
Though they’ve successfully spread fear among immigrant communities, Trump and his border czar Tom Homan—who has pledged to run “the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen”—are reportedly already upset that their numbers aren’t more eye-popping.
