Donald Trump has vowed to begin the largest mass deportations in U.S. history on his first day as president, with an aide saying it will be "the moment President Trump puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath of office on Monday." Start execution.
But immigration experts say how large the operation will be and how quickly it can be implemented will depend in part on whether the government can clear some hurdles. They include resistance from some cities and local law enforcement agencies, budget and staffing shortfalls at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, lawsuits from advocacy and civil rights groups, and issues with state cooperation needed to increase the number of deportations.
An estimated 11 million people in the United States currently lack legal status.
"I don't think it's possible to deport all unauthorized immigrants," Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute's U.S. Immigration Policy Project, told NBC News.
Trump's first administration deported unauthorized immigrants nearly 1.2 million times, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration deported 2.9 million illegal immigrants during its first term and 1.9 million during its second term. These numbers may include people who have been deported multiple times.
"The first Trump administration did not reach these levels, in part because of reduced cooperation with local and state law enforcement, which in many cases was due to sanctuary policies and laws," Bush-Joseph said. "This time around, "We have records from many sheriffs and local law enforcement agencies that either are willing to support mass eviction programs or they are not."
She said she would focus on "potentially growing divisions between red states and blue states and localities."
Democratic city and state leaders across the country have pledged to oppose Trump's plan and in some cases passed ordinances aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants from Trump's deportations. Texas, meanwhile, has flexed its enforcement muscles at the border and positioned itself as a key player in Trump's immigration agenda, while other conservative states have passed anti-asylum policies.
Over the past decade, about 70 to 75 percent of ICE arrests in the interior of the U.S. were transfers from other law enforcement agencies, including local and state jails and federal prisons, according to the Immigration Legal Resource Center.
"For Trump's policies to be effective, a lot of them will probably have to be coordinated with the states," said Rick Su, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.
Trump officials have said they will crack down on localities that resist his plans, while the incoming president is considering withholding federal police funding from law enforcement agencies that refuse to aid deportations.
Trump pursued a similar strategy during his first term but encountered significant legal obstacles. Sue said what his administration can legally force states and localities to do remains an open question.
If the court rules in favor of Trump's ability to mobilize federal resources and push states and localities to comply, "residents may start to push back against these things quite strongly," he said.
Andrea Flores said that as the second Trump administration unfolds, some places may strive to fully maintain their asylum status, while others may cooperate on cases considered higher priority, such as Those with criminal backgrounds or considered national security threats. Vice president of immigration policy and campaigns at FWD.us, which describes itself as a bipartisan organization advocating for immigration reform.
"But cities will continue to be the frontline defenses because they have to provide a patchwork of protections for their populations," said Flores, an immigration policy adviser to the Biden and Obama administrations.
Trump told NBC News last month that his administration would first focus on deporting criminals and then expand its operations.
The Trump administration's ability to implement the program at the speed and scale he seeks may also be hampered by legal action from civil rights and immigration advocacy groups. While the specific legal strategy will depend on the actions Trump takes and whether there are potential civil rights issues, the American Civil Liberties Union said it is "prepared to take action as soon as Trump is sworn in."
Two U.S. officials familiar with the figure told NBC News exclusively in December that another potential major obstacle is a $230 million shortfall in ICE's budget, which doesn't even include costs associated with mass deportations.
"ICE is already operating at a shortfall. Unless Congress provides significant additional funding for the execution of the mass deportation program, it will really take time to ramp up," Bush-Joseph said.
Negotiations on the spending are set to begin in January, when Republicans take control of the White House and Senate and narrowly control the House of Representatives, but it's unclear when and how Congress will agree to provide the funding.
“The truth is, even with Trump’s tough talk, he didn’t significantly increase deportations,” Sue said of Trump’s first term. “Part of it is resources and part of it is funding.”
The American Immigration Council, an immigration research and immigration advocacy group, said Trump's mass deportation policy could cost more than $88 billion. Trump previously told NBC News that his mass deportation plan "doesn't have a price tag."
Trump's pick for "border czar" Tom Homan previously told NBC News that $86 billion would be a "good start" and that he wanted at least 100,000 detention beds. Currently, there are about 34,000 people in the United States.
Outgoing ICE Director P.J. Lechleitner told NBC News earlier this month that the agency has nearly 8 million people in undetained cases, with one officer responsible for every 7,000 cases. As of September 2024, 435,719 of them had criminal backgrounds, including 13,099 convicted of homicide and 15,811 convicted of sexual assault, according to a letter from ICE to Congress.
Lechleitner said ICE has been "chronically underfunded" and needs more staff and resources.
He also said that with ICE's current resources, it is impossible to increase the number of deportations.
Bush-Joseph said Trump "cannot deport everyone, but if Congress does provide substantial additional funding and allows expected restrictive measures to take effect, the administration may ramp up deportations on his watch."
Flores and Bush-Joseph said another obstacle to mass deportations is the need for diplomatic agreements with other countries, since not all unauthorized immigrants can be deported to the countries they left.
"This is absolutely a key element of the mass deportation plan," Bush-Joseph said.
"The Biden administration has made a real concerted effort in negotiations with other countries to get more countries to accept their nationals," she said. "This includes a historic agreement with Mexico to take back third-country nationals, But in return establish legal pathways, such as a humanitarian parole process.”
She said that with Trump's threat to use tariffs to force countries to repatriate their nationals, "it's unclear what other countries would seek in exchange or in exchange for accepting their own nationals or third-country nationals." .
Most of the deportees came from Mexico and northern Central America, she said, as those countries receive large numbers of returns of their own nationals. But immigration from Venezuela and Cuba has increased significantly in recent years, and these countries do not accept their citizens back.
Experts say there are factors that could contribute to Trump's plan to ramp up deportations, including quickly deporting more immigrants who cross the border illegally by expanding expedited deportations.
Beginning in 2004, the policy allowed authorities to initiate expedited deportation proceedings for illegal immigrants apprehended within 100 miles of a U.S. land border and apprehended within 14 days of arrival.
The first Trump administration began broadly expanding the policy to undocumented immigrants across the U.S. who could not prove continuous residence in the United States for two years or more.
The decision was blocked by the courts before it was finally allowed to take effect. A lawyer for the Biden administration withdrew the policy.
"I expect the Trump administration will again expand expedited removal because it avoids long backlogs and delays in immigration courts," Bush-Joseph said, noting there are more than 3.5 million pending immigration cases.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court has also upheld the executive branch's authority in immigration cases in recent years, Bush-Joseph said, and recent precedent has limited the ability to prosecute.
Even if a major lawsuit is filed, as the case moves through the legal system, the courts must decide whether to block a policy or allow it to proceed.