With Marines on the border, immigration authorities conducting raids, and more immigrants facing deportation, President Donald Trump is ending the week.
Trump assured Americans that he will deport more people than ever before on his first day in office. Even though it took some time, he started the process of fulfilling his promise.
Increased terror in immigrant populations, applause from supporters, declarations from state and local authorities outlining their responsibilities in supporting or opposing immigration enforcement, and multifront court battles against Trump’s executive orders and actions have all resulted from this.
Trump began the week by rescinding the executive orders on immigration signed by President Joe Biden, including those that created legal routes for the huge number of migrants who have been coming to the border in recent years. Trump also signed a number of his own, chief among them the declaration of an emergency along the southern border of the United States and the attempt to prevent certain immigrants’ children born in the country from automatically becoming citizens of the United States, which a federal judge temporarily barred.
Some of the 1,500 Army and Marines soldiers the DOD said would be deployed to the southwest border arrived in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, on Thursday. Two enormous C-17 military cargo planes transported migrants from Guatemala out of the nation on Friday. In addition, ICE was demonstrating its might by conducting arrests across the nation, most notably through workplace raids in Newark, New Jersey, where American people were detained and questioned.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated in a post on X that President Trump is delivering a clear and powerful message to the entire world: if you enter the United States of America illegally, you will face serious repercussions.
According to Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank that supports immigration reform, Trump has strategically set the stage for scaling up capacity and bringing in additional agencies for more detention and removals than the previous administration, even though mass deportations did not occur on Day 1 as he had promised.
Trump’s first actions have delivered a strong message, according to Ruiz, even if military forces are only available to bolster border operations and some of the individuals apprehended were imprisoned or targeted under the Biden administration.
According to him, militarization of the border has a significant and direct impact on communicating to migrants and other nations that the US is working harder to secure the border. We are aware that in reality, border closure is really challenging, but the messaging is crucial because it informs migrants that there will be more people and that crossing will be more challenging.
More arrests, more manpower
ICE reports that 593 individuals were taken into custody by officers on Friday. This week, 19 cities nationwide—in states like Illinois, Utah, California, Minnesota, New York, Florida, and Maryland—saw arrests.
In September 2024, the most recent month for which statistics is available, ICE arrested 282 migrants every day; this is over twice as many arrests.
Trump began to carry on his promise to employ other federal agencies and personnel to find, detain, and remove immigrants from the country, and he allowed immigration officials more discretion over where they may show up to make arrests.
A long-standing rule that forbade ICE from making undocumented arrests in hospitals, schools, churches, or specific occasions like weddings and funerals without first obtaining agency approval was repealed by the Trump administration. The ruling may lead to conflicts with educators, school officials, pastors, and medical professionals who wish to safeguard patients, pupils, and members of the congregation.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security authorized law enforcement officials in the Department of Justice’s departments to investigate and detain individuals who are not authorized to be in the nation.It granted that authority to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
President Trump promised the American people that he would carry out mass deportations, and mobilizing these law enforcement officials will help him achieve this goal. Efforts to identify and capture illegal aliens have been underfunded for decades. According to DHS’s announcement, this is a significant step in resolving that issue.
According to ICE, 373 of the individuals it arrested on Thursday had committed significant offenses such aggravated assault, robbery, and sexual assault. Additionally, 165 people who had not been found guilty of any crimes or who were suspected of minor infractions like unauthorized border crossing were taken into custody by ICE.
Troops at a quieter border
The Border Patrol reported fewer encounters this week, a U.S. official told NBC News. In contrast to the average of 1,552 interactions each day in December, there were 843 encounters on January 22.
The number of border crossings was already declining under Biden, according to data from Mexico, and had gotten to roughly the same levels that Trump was seeing in the last few months of his first term, Ruiz said.
According to Ruiz, Trump inherited a comparatively peaceful border from the Biden administration.
However, the government sent military cargo planes to deport migrants in keeping with Trump’s pledge to crack down on immigration, which boosted support during the election season.
Two military aircraft and one nonmilitary aircraft transported migrants to Guatemala, according to two defense officials who spoke to NBC News.
According to the Guatemalan government, three flights carrying 80 and 105 Guatemalan nationals were received from the United States on Friday morning. Guatemala City received the three flights.
The Trump administration blocked a route for legal entrance earlier this week for migrants who were in Mexico awaiting appointments to apply for asylum or who were attempting to make such appointments.
When Trump shut down the CBP, their expectations were crushed. Biden created one smartphone app to reduce the number of people who are unlawfully crossing the border in big groups, turning themselves in to Border Patrol officers, and requesting asylum.
The so-called “remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico until their hearings, was also revived by Trump. According to Mexico’s foreign minister, there is no deal with the United States to bring the policy back.
According to Ruiz, some non-Mexican migrants who are now waiting in Mexico are applying for asylum there.
Speaking to NBC News, three sheriffs from the southern border said they have not yet noticed any changes in their daily tasks, including as handling complaints of smugglers and migrant arrivals in their regions.
It continues to occur. After his squad responded to a human smuggling attempt on Tuesday, Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark Dannels stated, “We are not unrealistic to think everything is cleaned up, no problem.” He claimed that his county is feeling relieved by the news of Trump’s election.
Sheriff David Hathaway of Santa Cruz County, Arizona, stated that he is making every effort to let his primarily Latino community know that they may still report safety issues, irrespective of their legal status.
For fear of being arrested and deported, some law enforcement professionals worry that immigrants may be unwilling to report crimes or provide witness statements or testimony to help officers investigate them.
Whether migrants become weary of waiting for something to change in Mexico or are driven by cartels to attempt other routes will determine whether Trump’s immigration enforcement further cuts border crossings, according to MPI’s Ruiz.
He stated that the millions of money that the cartels and smugglers earn will be directly impacted by all of the frontier limitations. They will probably react in some way to force migrants to use other, riskier routes.