What Do We Mean By Mass Deportation
layout: post title: “Is THAT what we mean by ‘Mass Deportation’?” date: 2025-03-01 01:01:01 -0000
Is THAT what we mean by “Mass Deportation”?
Twelve million deportations? Or less than a 500,000?
The Short Stuff: Restrictionists often say they are in favor of deportations for all unauthorized immigrants. However, restrictionist policy-makers seem to understand that this isn’t remotely possible. This is not a minor difference.
By “mass deportation”, restrictionists mean that all unauthorized immigrants will be deported.
Quoting Trump as a restrictionist might be a bit unfair, as he’s probably not familiar with the realities of immigration policy the way his Border Czar
Interviewer: “Is it your plan to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years?” (emphasis added)
Trump: “Well, I think you have to do it. And it’s a very tough thing to do.”
-- [Cite this correctly]
This sentiment seems pretty strongly backed up by this official statement from the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt:
Ms. Leavitt: The president has said countless times on the campaign trail — I’ve been with him at the rallies; I know you’ve been there covering them too, Peter — that he is focused on launching the largest mass deportation operation in American history of illegal criminals. And if you are an individual, a foreign national, who illegally enters the United States of America, you are, by definition, a criminal.
There is a little wiggle-room in this statement, as only about half of unauthorized immigrants entered the country illegally (the other half overstayed their visas).
And of course, there’s the statement from Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.
Kristi Noem: If you try to enter illegally, you will be caught, you will be removed, and you will never return.
[DHS
Tyler Oneill: “If you want to have - and I think we’re talking as the… second Trump administration is ramping up - if you want to have a massive deportation of all these illegal aliens, which I think just, you know, I think it’s legal, it’s going to be interesting to see how the left fights back as Trump tries to pull this out.
CIS Podcast 181: Inside the Administrative State (12:44) (emphasis added)
The National Conservatism conference is clear voice for restrictionist ideas, and their recent speaker made clear that deportation is not limited to criminals, or those near the border.
Theo Wold: “If you encounter the federal government directly, and you are present here illegally, you will be sent home. Period. No ‘got-aways’, not at the border, but also not in the interior of the country.”
National Conservatism conference “Decolonizing America: The Necessity of Deportation”
And of course, popular restrictionist speakers make it clear that their calls for deportation extend to all unauthorized immigrants.
Candace Owens: “I would be very happy if we found out a way to get them all back into their country. Trump is actually a little more lenient. He offered them a deal, the DACA deal… I’m even against that. I think if you disrespect our law you need to be sent home. Period.”
But there is a different group of restrictionists; a group that deals more closely with actual policy.
By “mass deportation”, restrictionists mean that only a very small fraction of unauthorized immigrants will be deported.
I think most people who think about the threat of mass deportation realize that it’s a political impossibility, but my first inkling that this was understood by restrictionists in power came from Tom Homan.
Interviewer: So after you [deport criminals], then you go after everybody who is there illegally. Tom Homan: If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table.
Oh. Just… ‘on the table’? But… this is the same standard that U.S. governmental policy has followed for the past half a century: keep deportation as an option for all unauthorized immigrants, but leave most of them alone. If this is what “mass deportation” means, then we’ve always done “mass deportation”.
It turns out, Mark Krikorian, Executive Directory for the Center for Immigration Studies agrees!
Mark Krikorian: “What does ‘mass deportation’ actually mean? And is it really going to be all that different from what happened in previous administrations?… mass deportation as it’s being described by the incoming Border Czar Tom Homan really isn’t an outlier. It’s what we’ve had the past four years which is an outlier.”
Now, that’s certainly a new take! Apparently by ‘mass deportation’, we just mean the same rates of deportation that we’ve had for most of the past few decades. It’s hard to square this with the idea of a dramatic increase in deportations, enough to forcibly remove all (or nearly all) of the unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.
Mr. Krikorian’s description here is also a little hard to square with the history of deportations.
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Even given the different interpretations of what counts as a “deportation”, it’s hard to imagine in what sense pre-Covid deportation numbers constitute “mass deportation” in the way that restrictionists typically use that term.
So What?
So, why make a fuss over this?
This isn’t a small difference.
The difference between “deporting all unauthorized immigrants” and any of the suggested alternative definitions is massive: at least ten million people. This isn’t a slight distinction; it’s a dramatic and ethically fraught gap. It’s the difference bet
Playing both sides of the coin here traps 10 million people in limbo.
The status quo really is God here.