_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
According to Trump administration insiders, the president’s goal is to boot one million illegals.
President Donald Trump was reportedly upset at the slow pace of illegal migrant deportations last month. And while the administration has picked up the pace when it comes to arrests, deportation numbers are still lagging.
With its current budget, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) simply does not have the manpower, nor the physical space, to manage the sort of mass deportations Trump discussed on the campaign trail.
_THE FACTS_
ICE says it requires additional funding from Congress to expand detention capacity to 100,000 beds, recruit hundreds of new agents, and increase the number of planes for deportation flights.
Republicans in Congress are looking to boost ICE’s funding from anywhere from $90 billion to even $175 billion over the next decade.
However, ICE previously warned Congress of a $2 billion shortfall this fiscal year.
The agency, which is under the Department of Homeland Security, has a relatively low budget; for fiscal year 2024, it was approximately $9 billion.
ICE has deported over 65,000 illegal migrants in Trump’s (most recent) first 100 days.
They also arrested roughly the same number, all of whom the administration will seek to deport.
The number of arrests is higher than that of the Biden administration; however, the pace of deportations is lower.
Border czar Tom Homan stated that the number of arrests is “not high enough.” “The more money you have, the more successful we’re going to be.”
_INSIGHTS_
Polling shows that President Trump still has majority support for his deportation policies — but that support is slowly eroding. One reason may be that Trump is promising big but underdelivering. Remember, the administration is aiming for one million deportations, but possibly as many as 10 times that number entered the country under the Biden administration.
The declining support could also be a communication issue, which will not be solved by more funding. The mainstream media has repeatedly framed Trump’s deportees in a positive light.
If deportations increase, there will likely be even more pushback against Trump’s operation, meaning the administration may have to persist even if poll numbers suffer.
