ICE Deportation
Molly O'Brien
February 23, 2025
On Jan. 20, just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second, non-consecutive term, ten executive orders were signed by the president to capitalize on his campaign promises of mass deportations and securing the southern border.
One of President Trump’s executive orders directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), currently run by Kristi Noem (R-SD), to expand the country’s detention infrastructure and to detain everyone arrested by DHS pending their removal. Now, under the DHS’s direction, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be able to conduct arrests in public places such as schools and churches.
ICE was established in 2003 through the merger of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Customs Service and remains the DHS’s main investigative agency.
Deportations are not unique to President Trump. Under the Bush administration, there was an increased focus on immigration enforcement, which led to a rise in deportations. These deportations were focused on immigrants with criminal records. During the Obama presidency, President Obama was often referred to as the “deporter-in-chief” given his administration’s high number of expulsions compared to past administrations. President Obama centered his deportation policies on people who posed a significant threat to national security or immigrants with extensive criminal convictions, who had recently crossed the border. Deportations reached a peak in 2013, with over 432,000 removals. In contrast to these administrations, the Trump administration’s policy is to target any unauthorized immigrants regardless of their economic and family ties to the United States.
President Trump’s ideas on immigration are not new to his 2024 presidential campaign. In a 2016 interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, held before his inauguration, he stated that his policy would aim to “get the people that are criminals and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country.”
The Trump administration is attempting to have ICE perform complete raids in three cities per week. The raids have been carried out in cooperation with ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The first round of raids took place in New York City on Tuesday, Jan. 28. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (NY-D) tweeted that he would “not hesitate to partner with federal authorities to bring violent criminals to justice.”
Not all states and officials are as willing to participate in the deportation efforts. The mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, Michelle Wu (D-MA), said in an interview that the city’s officials “don’t enforce federal immigration law. Our police department takes care of criminal activity and they focus on local issues, and wherever someone breaks the law, we hold them accountable here regardless of their immigration status, which we do not ask about and we do not interact with.”
Watertown, Massachusetts Police Chief Justin Hanrahan echoed the sentiments of the Boston Mayor. He stated that the local police’s role is to “enforce local and state law, not federal law.” He went on to say that the immigration raids and deportations are what the federal agents are for and not “part of what we [local law enforcement] do.”
As of early February, over 7,300 immigrants have been deported, averaging around 900 arrests a week. President Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on any country not willing to accept their deportees.
Advocates have voiced their concerns over the deportation strategies, ratcheting up their efforts to stop the potential sweeps. In California, coalitions have formed to warn immigrant communities of potential ICE raids. Legal teams across the United States are working to try to help immigrant families fearing for their safety.