In his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump is promising to deport millions of migrants now living in the U.S. if he is elected. While his followers wave signs reading “Mass Deportation Now!” and polling shows that support for the policy has increased, what’s missing from the conversation is the often-brutal reality of what mass deportations have looked like in America’s past — and what they might look like in the near future.
Many historians of immigration see America’s previous experiments in mass deportation as failures, both because they did not accomplish their purported goals and had widespread negative social effects. Similarly, many policy analysts predict that any mass deportation plan attempted by a second Trump administration would be shambolic and likely stuck in a legal and logistical quagmire. Others, however, suggest we should not underestimate the willingness of Trump and his 2024 inner circle to violate legal and political norms and bulldoze the kinds of obstacles that might stop a more conventional administration.
