Trump's immigration crackdown is stronger, faster — but is it better? |
Trump’s immigration crackdown is stronger, faster — but is it better?
Funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies was at the epicenter of the recently resolved budget impasse. This roadblock, resulting in a record-long 75-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, was focused on how ICE was staffed and directed by the Trump administration.
During his campaign in 2024, President Trump promised he would solve the nation’s immigration problem, a focus that dates back to his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border during his first term. The president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated an additional $75 billion of funding to ICE over a four-year period, far beyond its annual $10 billion appropriation, making it impervious to congressional actions that most agencies require to be funded annually.
Yet with such an infusion of money, have ICE efforts over the past year really produced good outcomes for our nation?
Trump has blamed his predecessor for many of the nation’s immigration problems. So you would assume that ICE never did anything during President Joe Biden’s administration. But this is not so.
Looking back to the final full fiscal year of the Biden administration, ICE deported more than 271,000 people, or just over 22,000 people per month — the largest such number for more than a decade. It also........