Trump admin on pace to shatter deportation record by end of first year: ‘Just the beginning’
The Trump administration is set to smash record for deporting illegal migrants in a year — beating the previous figure under Barack Obama.
Since President Trump returned to the White House on Jan. 20, more than 515,000 immigrants have been deported, a high-ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Fox News Digital.
More than 600,000 illegal immigrants are set to be deported by the end of Trump’s first year — far surpassing the previous record 435,000 in 2013 under President Obama.
The administration is “on pace to shatter historic records” by 2026, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital.
More than two million illegal immigrants — including 1.6 million who “self-deported” — have left the US since January 20, she added.
A further 485,000 migrants have been arrested by the DHS since Trump took office, according to official figures.
Unlike the previous record under the Obama administration — which racked up deportations by detaining and kicking out migrants right after they crossed the border illegaly — most Trump deportations are coming from migrants arrested within the US.
Trump quickly locked down the border after taking office — reducing illegal crossings to just a few thousand a month, down from highs that exceeded 200,000 under former President Joe Biden.
“This is just the beginning,” McLaughlin said, adding that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have jumpstarted an agency that was vilified and barred from doing its job for the last four years.”
“Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequence. Migrants are now even turning back before they reach our borders,” McLaughlin added, pointing to what she said was a 99.99 per cent drop in migration through Panama’s Darien Gap, a key migration route of US-bound aliens.
“In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country,” she said.
