The Trump administration said it would try to shame state and local governments that don’t help with its mass removal plan. The administration called the campaign “still in the beginning stages,” even though the White House is celebrating its official 100th day in office.
In a new order that will be signed Monday, President Trump tells Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to make public a list of state and local governments that they believe are making it harder for the federal government to enforce immigration laws.
It’s the latest small step up in Trump’s strong second-term crackdown on immigration, which has put him at odds with the federal courts over the role of due process for migrants being sent out of the country.
At a press briefing on Monday, administration officials used numbers to support their effort to stop the flow of migrants at the Mexican border, which is clearly working.
Tom Homan, who is in charge of the border, said that between 11,000 and 15,000 people crossed the southern border every day on average during most of Joe Biden’s time in office.
“Do you remember what the number was the last 24 hours?” “One hundred seventy-eight,” Homan said. “15,000 to 178.” Never seen before.”
In another big difference from Biden’s time in office, Homan said that during Trump’s first few months in office, only nine illegal immigrants have been let into the country. That number was 184,000 the year before.
Homan said of the former president’s record on the border, “Biden unsecured it on purpose.” He said that at least 20 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. and that 700,000 of them are facing criminal charges.
Earlier this month, Noem said, “20 to 21 million people… need to go home.” However, it has been harder to remove people because of legal problems and a lack of resources.
A reporter asked Homan how many people had been deported in total, and he said that 139,000 people had been sent away. He said the rate of deportations was “good,” but he was upset that the news was saying Biden removed people faster.
“Not 10.5 million people are crossing the border.” We don’t have removals at the gate, he said. “So Joe Biden could have deported 5% of the people he met, and the numbers would still be higher than ours when it comes to crossing the border, since ours is safe.”
The administration also talked a lot about the results of Operation Tidal Wave, which was a joint enforcement move led by ICE Miami and other law enforcement agencies. Nearly 800 undocumented immigrants were nabbed in just four days. Among them were a Colombian murderer, people suspected of being members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs, and a Russian citizen charged with manslaughter.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “We are just getting started on the biggest deportation campaign in U.S. history.” Operation Tidal Wave is a taste of what’s to come in this country: big operations with the help of state and local police to get dangerous illegal immigrants off the streets.
Homan said that more military bases are being built, like Fort Bliss in Texas, to house more detainees who are waiting for final orders to be sent home. However, building schedules are still subject to change.
Homan said that he would not stop dealing with illegal immigration until drug gangs are “wiped off the face of the Earth.”
About 1.4 million people who have already been told to leave the U.S. but are still here illegally are among those who are being deported.
A poll done last week by CBS News found that 56% of Americans back Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants. Another poll by ABC News found that 53% of Americans don’t like how the president is treating immigration.
This shows that mass deportations are still supported by a lot of people, even though more and more Americans are worried about the methods the government is using to carry out that policy.