President-elect Donald J. Trump vowed throughout his campaign to carry out the “largest deportation program in American history,” including a “Day 1” effort to send millions of immigrants “back home where they belong,” and putting “no price tag” on the effort.
But as he transitions from the campaign to the White House, Mr. Trump’s team is encountering a harsh reality of immigration policy: Easier said than done.
In public remarks and private conversations with members of Congress, Mr. Trump’s immigration team has conceded that his aspirations for mass deportations will be both costly and time-consuming.
Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda and his pick to be deputy chief of staff, met with congressional Republicans on Wednesday for a “level setting” of expectations and needs for immigration enforcement, according to a congressional member who participated in the meeting.
Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s pick to oversee the deportations, has told Republicans to expect a phased approach that first prioritizes those with a criminal record, rather than a national sweep of any immigrant with uncertain or contested legal status. And he has made clear there is, indeed, a price tag for the efforts, saying they will need Congress to approve billions of additional dollars to carry them out.
That is a tall order on Capitol Hill, where Republicans hold slim majorities and Democrats are all but certain to oppose the funding of a mass deportation effort. Some lawmakers expect that after an initial wave of deportations of those easiest to remove, Mr. Trump will spend the rest of his time in office haggling with Congress over money for more.
“Congress needs to fund this deportation operation,” Mr. Homan told Fox Business in December. “It’s going to be expensive, and everybody is focused on how expensive it’s gonna be.”
Mr. Trump will still find ways to call attention to his early efforts to crack down, such as spotlighting deportations in Democratic-led cities or work site raids in the first days of his presidency. While appearing on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast in November, Mr. Homan said the public should expect immigration action that creates “shock and awe.”
But the recent tempering of expectations by his top advisers is an acknowledgment that Mr. Trump’s ambitious immigration goals, including deporting millions of undocumented people, are likely to face serious financial and logistical challenges.
While Mr. Trump’s team has considered trying to use a public health measure to seal off the border with Mexico, he could face challenges in persuading public health authorities and the courts that migrant crossings pose a public health emergency to the nation, a claim that both have treated with skepticism in recent years.
Mr. Trump could also use a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that Mr. Biden embraced to further crack down on border crossings. But Mr. Trump tried to use the law in 2018 to block asylum seekers who crossed the border illegally and was blocked by a federal judge in San Francisco.
For his mass deportations, Mr. Trump must surge the hiring of immigration agents and secure access to more airplanes to remove millions of immigrants.
He will need to find a way to overcome rules in what some call “sanctuary cities” — those that refuse to hand over immigrants detained by police to federal immigration authorities.
Even then, Mr. Trump’s deportation goals will likely take more than four years, according to immigration experts.
“It takes time,” said John Fabbricatore, a former ICE deportation official who has been supportive of Mr. Trump’s deportation plans. He said ICE officers would immediately get to work, but “let’s have some realistic expectations.”
ICE also does not know where each of the estimated 12 million to 14 million immigrants with contested or uncertain status in the United States are. In order to conduct mass arrests, the agency would need to track down addresses and conduct surveillance.
To be sure, Mr. Trump’s fiery immigration rhetoric alone has already achieved success building support for his presidency and shifting the politics of immigration to the right. Roughly 55 percent of Americans said in a poll last year they wanted to see immigration reduced in the United States, a sharp increase from 44 percent who said the same in 2023. Democrats in the past year have embraced restrictive border security measures once touted by Republicans. Some Democratic governors, governors-elect and candidates have said they are willing to consider areas of potential cooperation with Mr. Trump when it comes to immigration.
“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement. “He will deliver.”
Mr. Homan has told Republicans that he is confident the new administration will eventually make good on Mr. Trump’s deportation mandate. He has said the new administration will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally but have U.S.-born children.
Mr. Trump’s team also has plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and members of the National Guard voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states to help with the deportation efforts. After meeting with Mr. Trump’s advisers, Republicans have also discussed transferring other funding in the Department of Homeland Security budget to fund immigration enforcement.
“Can they do it with existing resources? Maybe, maybe not,” said Ronald V. Vitiello, Mr. Trump’s former acting director of ICE and Border Patrol chief. “The department can reallocate existing budgets as well.”
“I think they’re going to start on Day 1,” he added, “but are they going to achieve the largest ever? That might take some more time.”
Mr. Trump promised nationwide raids to deport millions of immigrants when he was last in office, shocking many of his own ICE officials who long complained about limited resources. He achieved mixed results.
In 2019, ICE removed more than 267,000 people — the highest annual total during the Trump administration. That pales in comparison to the high mark that occurred under President Barack Obama, who deported more than 400,000 people in one year.
Right now, the agency detains around 40,000 people on any given day, because of funding limitations; most immigrants deported from the U.S. spend some time in detention. And the agency only has 20,000 employees, about a third of whom are deportation officers.
ICE operations within U.S. communities, in which officers target and detain immigrants, are resource-intensive and often require extensive research. Picking up targets from local U.S. jails is much more efficient, but requires increased cooperation from progressive cities that have shunned working with ICE.
In the 2024 fiscal year, ICE removed more than 271,000 people, the highest total since the Obama administration.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former policy adviser for Customs and Border Protection, said Mr. Trump will benefit from Mr. Homan’s experience.
“Homan, being the one who’s actually done this before, is trying to set expectations as opposed to rhetoric,” Ms. Cardinal Brown said. “We’ll still see people picked up and people deported. They’ll make a big show of things. Is it going to be millions in a few months? Unlikely.”
