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A change in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security is a good time to assess what should change and what shouldn’t when it comes to two of President Donald Trump’s top campaign promises: border security and mass deportations.
The Trump administration very quickly and successfully secured the border in its first year. Maintaining this is imperative to prevent additional national security, public safety and economic threats from entering the U.S.
With new DHS leadership, however, the administration can better pursue mass deportations. Limiting them to “the worst of the worst” results in only hundreds of thousands of deportations, when at least 20 million deportable aliens were residing in the U.S. at the start of Trump’s second term. In this Phase 2, the administration should open the aperture to significantly increase deportation numbers.
Candidate Trump promised the largest mass deportation effort in American history, not just the worst criminal aliens. America needs the administration to carry out that promise to restore the rule of law, relieve American taxpayers from unsustainable welfare, education, healthcare and other costs, and open college and job opportunities for American students, graduates and employees shut out by foreign students, cheaper labor and fraud.
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Following the bombings in Iran, Americans now wonder whether Iranian and other terrorist sleeper cells, who faced no obstacles entering the country during President Joe Biden’s four years of open borders, may activate and carry out terrorism in the U.S.
It is important to note that known and suspected terrorists often do not have a criminal history. In fact, they are often chosen because of their “clean” background. So, DHS will need to use other tools to identify and locate national security threats, including worksite enforcement, scrutinizing immigration and other government benefit applications, as well as financial accounts.
These and other tools should likewise be used with respect to all deportable aliens to achieve the promised and necessary mass deportations. While self-deportation is a valuable tool, deportable aliens without rap sheets will not opt to leave on their own if they do not see a risk of DHS deporting them. So long as remaining in the U.S. illegally is low risk, high reward, deportable aliens will continue to stay here.
As such, DHS under new leadership should change that risk calculus to make continued stays high-risk, low-reward. To do so requires removing work authorization from deportable aliens and enforcing the law against unauthorized workers and their employers, as well as preventing remittances from such ill-gotten work leaving the country.
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Conducting mass deportations will draw more bogus claims from the left against ICE. During Trump’s second term, both DHS and the White House have consistently and effectively refuted the left’s false ICE allegations, which whither under scrutiny. It is important that DHS continue to shoot down such false claims with the critical facts the left intentionally omits.
But we also need much more transparency from DHS regarding ICE deportation numbers. ICE used to report such data monthly but has not done so since the Trump administration began in January 2025. Nor has DHS reported how many aliens have used the CBP Home app to self deport.
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To give the American public confidence that DHS is indeed conducting mass deportations, the department should regularly report the number of removals from the interior of the U.S. versus border turnbacks and maritime interdictions, as well as self-departures, including timely and untimely departures, and use of the CBP Home app.
The government, over the course of several administrations, has used different components and definitions to calculate removal numbers. It is important to understand this administration’s methodology to determine how well it is pursuing President Trump’s signature campaign promise and legacy-defining policy.
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