The Deportation Machine

The Deportation Machine

An interview with Dara Lind and Omar Jadwat on immigration policy in the second Trump administration.

This conversation took place on February 24. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Patrick Iber: The Trump administration has turned immigrants into a category of undesirables onto which it can project social problems. The official White House X account has released an ASMR video of deportees in shackles. They are establishing camps at Guantánamo and other military bases and sending asylum seekers to countries to which they have no connection. Yet so far the number of deportees isn’t much higher than under Obama. So what’s going on—and where should we expect things to go?

Dara Lind: I think of efforts aiming toward the goal of mass deportation on a coordinate plane. One axis is how much a measure expands the scope and capacity of federal immigration enforcement. It would have been legal for the federal government to attempt to deport everyone who was unauthorized in the United States at any time in the last twenty-plus years. But the capacity and the logistical wherewithal, and the political will, to do that have not existed. Efforts to expand detention capacity, or to increase the scope of deportation flights and increase the number of countries to which someone can be sent, raise the ceiling for how many people can be brought into and through the deportation machine.

The other axis is how much media coverage an effort generates. That satisfies the base, giving people who feel aggrieved a sense that they have won a meaningful victory. And even if the administration can’t fully expand the scope of the federal machine, it can make people afraid enough that they don’t send their children to school or go to work. Whether these immigrants “self-deport” or not, such efforts isolate them in communities where they’ve been socially integrated, though not legally integrated, for years.

You can plot a bunch of things that the government has done so far on the second axis. “Border czar” Tom Homan has made a big deal out of enforcement efforts in blue cities where few arrests have occurred, partly because “know your rights” trainings have been tremendously successful—people know not to open the door and to demand a warrant signed by a judge. That increases media coverage but doesn’t do much to expand capacity, whereas creating detention spaces on military bases doesn’t necessarily generate coverage but does increase capacity.

Omar Jadwat: There was a lot of speculation before the inauguration about to what degree the administration was interested in each of those axes. Now it looks like they’re going for both. They don’t seem to be particularly worried about avoiding the removal of people who are thought of favorably by the public. There was a lot of talk about going after criminals, but they’re not really hiding that they’re targeting large numbers of people who came here at the invitation of the U.S. government with authorization, albeit not the kind of authorization that the Trump administration thinks is good enough, like previous administrations’ programs for asylum seekers.

Lind: Instead of confining their enforcement to the people they promised to target, they are using policy to expand the number of people who are removable, and who can be seen as criminals. This is both in terms of their rhetoric—the White House press secretary said that as far as they’re concerned, all undocumented migrants are criminals—and in terms of the policy levers they’re using, such as designating Venezuelan criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations and therefore opening the door for treating all Venezuelans as alien enemies.

Iber: Can we dig into the administration’s treatment of Temporary Protected Status? There are groups of people with TPS who, as Omar said, have basically been invited by the U.S. government because of conditions in their home countries, some of which have connections to U.S. policy, at least historically, such as in Central America. It seems like the Trump administration is looking to close those avenues, even for people who have not broken any laws in the United States.

Lind: I think a lot about people who came to the United States under the Biden-era parole program, which opened up to Venezuelans in the fall of 2022 (and subsequently to Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians). Tens of thousands of people came. Then in the summer of 2023, the Biden administration redesignated TPS, which allowed people who did not already have TPS but were in the country to sign up. Those people came with protections, then transitioned to a different form of protection. The Biden administration took some midnight actions to extend TPS for those people, but the Trump administration called the move illegitimate and then said they would lose their status as of April.

What I struggle with is how important it is to emphasize the people who are following the letter of U.S. law. On the one hand, the doveish position has been that it’s not relevant whether someone is a “good” or “bad” immigrant; the United States has an obligation to be maximally welcoming, simply by virtue of being a regional and global power. On the other hand, the hawks, despite occasionally saying they like “legal” but not “illegal” immigrants, are really concerned about demographic and cultural change. JD Vance said during the campaign that he wasn’t particularly concerned that the Biden administration had designated recent Haitian arrivals as legal, because as far as he was concerned they were still illegal.

It’s important from a public education standpoint to understand just how many people who are unauthorized or removable have been making an effort to comply with the U.S. government. On the other hand, I don’t really know what it gets us, because it seems to me that everybody tends to discuss legal status instrumentally without really believing in it.

Jadwat: There ought to be some legal relevance to what the government, across mutiple administrations, has said or done, both to the public and to the people who are directly affected by these programs. It’s not a question about the deservingness of any particular person, but the idea that the government can’t make promises on questions that are this serious and far-reaching for migrants and then pull the rug out from under them. That, to me, is an important illustration of what is objectionable about what this administration is doing—not to say that other folks who have been living here for a long time don’t have reason to be concerned about the deportation machine.

Lind: The relevant legal term here is “reliance interest.” The government makes promises and provides predictability and reliability in processes like this, and when they alter the deal, that creates an opportunity for legal challenge. In this case, we’re talking about people who are often socially integrated. The fact that they already had to make decisions about their lives eighteen months at a time was never ideal. But that is still a lot better than saying, “You were planning to stay here until the fall of 2025 because the government said in January you could, but now we’re saying in February that you have to be out by this April.” That is something that the structure of U.S. law says can be challenged on the basis of harm.

Iber: Do you see this as being part of the Trump administration’s deliberate strategy to consolidate power within the executive and shape the population of the United States in a direction that it finds congenial?

Jadwat: There is a lot of executive discretion baked into our immigration law. But that’s not enough for this administration to accomplish what it wants. Dara’s absolutely right that, in theory, it would have been legal for any previous administration to decide to remove everyone who’s in the country unlawfully. The problem that the Trump administration has is that the constraints, both practical and legal, are tremendous. In my view, it is impossible to do what they want to do without breaking a bunch of laws along the way. This is an issue they’re facing in other policy areas as well.

Lind: From the beginning of Trump’s first term to today, his people have become more aware of how to pull the levers of power within the executive branch to accomplish desired goals. Look at the difference between the first travel ban in 2017, for example, and the subsequent, more sophisticated iterations of it, or their discovery in 2019 that they could use migrant protection protocols for the Remain in Mexico program. Or their understanding that they need to go after offices of the general counsel within various agencies, which could be a roadblock to policy coming from the White House. Those tactics are more fully developed now.

Iber: Trump’s popularity seems to be falling at the time that we’re having this conversation. But it also seems clear that many people agreed with Trump that there were problems with the immigration system. How they directed that dissatisfaction and anger depended on what information they were receiving and how they understood the U.S. political system. But a powerful anti-immigrant backlash driving people to the right is certainly not unique to the United States. How do we think about the rights that people have when they’re in the country versus the complicated domestic politics? The constituency for pro-migrant policies may not line up with the voting population.

Lind: I disagree with the maximalist read that immigration has been the point of the spear driving people to support the right, rather than being a key issue for people who are already solidly on the right by this point. It is hard to disentangle people whose primary concern is immigration, cultural change, or the rule of law. Some people who generally feel like things are going in the wrong direction point to immigration, because the issue is made salient by news events—specifically with increasing numbers of apprehensions or visuals of large groups of people.

A lot of medium- and high-information voters think about immigration in terms of the politics and messaging. But very few people know as much about the immigration system as they think they do. There is a certain amount of offloading of civic responsibility into the realm of political strategy. People probably would have a different attitude about what they themselves could do if they understood more about how the system works and who is trying to protect and welcome people. Instead, they are having conversations about how to win over hypothetical others.

Jadwat: The Biden administration did very little to change the conversation about immigration. From the day they arrived, they adopted a mantra of “don’t come to the United States,” and they measured the administration’s immigration policy through visuals—decreasing the number of headlines about a crisis and pictures of people at the border. In some sense, they were doomed from that point. The Trump administration had the same problem, but they had an answer, which was to do more of what they were already doing. The Biden administration changed a number of policies from the first Trump administration, though maybe not as many as they could have, but they never made a serious attempt to put out a different message.

Iber: What should voters know about the immigration system?

Lind: I was glad that we seized on TPS as an index case. It took a while, but the image of the model unauthorized immigrant shifted from a single Mexican man seeking work to a Central American family seeking asylum. In the last half-decade that image has become much more global. Many of these people come through TPS: they are to some degree complying with the government and are caught in the asylum backlog. That should change our understanding of whether the fault is with them, or whether the fault is with the system. But the lack of policy responsiveness makes sense. People in the immigration system are not voters, and naturalization is the one thing that the U.S. government prioritizes being a smooth and expedited process, so naturalized citizens who can now vote had a more positive final experience of the U.S. immigration system.

Some of this is about administrative burden. But a lot of people who were eligible for work permits under Biden-era parole programs never applied for them. That’s a failure of the government to communicate. It also means that there’s low-hanging fruit in terms of outreach and basic service provision. And there is a broader question of what welcoming people looks like. For example, if we’re talking about people who can’t support themselves, does that mean more aggressive mutual aid? Those avenues largely haven’t been explored, partially because people haven’t been thinking of the problems of the current system beyond it being bad when ICE storms in to deport people.

Jadwat: There are a lot of things that are counterintuitive and difficult to understand about the immigration system. At the macro level, there’s a tendency to think that there is a binary between, on the one hand, closing the border and deporting everybody, and on the other, having no immigration controls. Many people will say that it’s obviously more complicated than that, but they can’t necessarily explain how or why. And it is a complicated and bizarre system. When I learn about a new part of immigration law, it’s never exactly what I expect it to be.

Iber: These laws were written for many different moments. Conditions have changed dramatically in the world, and the law doesn’t keep up with those changes. Is that what you’re encountering?

Jadwat: Yes, although I’m not sure that the laws were sensible even when they were written. Many presidents have looked for ways to get around them. But a lot of the things that the Trump administration is trying to get around are not weird or cumbersome. If you come to this country seeking protection from persecution, you’re entitled, under the current law, to a minimal level of screening to see whether there is truth to that. That seems pretty basic.

Many people, myself included, would say the current system does not do enough to determine whether or not you really need protection. If, at the end of the day, you could be sent back to a place where you might be persecuted or tortured or killed, minimal screening should get you over the bar to have a more searching inquiry. That’s what the law should provide. But successive administrations—Trump 1, Biden, and now Trump 2—have said, “We can’t even make that minimal inquiry.” Now, the Trump administration is saying that they’re not going to screen anyone seeking asylum by that standard. They’re not doing any effective screening whatsoever or offering the most minimal protections.

We’re not talking about open borders or closed borders. We’re talking about whether the Trump administration is going to pay any attention to people’s life-or-death needs when they seek protection in this country. Right now, the answer is no—regardless of what the law says, and regardless of what ordinary people think is the decent thing to do.

Iber: Are they risking a backlash? U.S. public opinion shifted significantly in a pro-immigration direction during the first Trump administration, partly around the question of separating minors from their families. Then, as Dara said, they adapted by forcing people to wait in Mexico or Central America, further from U.S. media attention. But recently I’ve seen reporting from Guatemala and Panama that is highlighting stories of people who are facing real dangers of torture and death if they’re returned: Soldiers who defected from the Venezuelan military. Iranians who converted to Christianity. If those stories became common knowledge, would there be another shift in how Americans perceive what’s taking place?

Lind: I have an unpopular read on what happened with family separation in 2018: it was a catastrophic success. The Trump administration absolutely backtracked on it because of public backlash and litigation. But they had options they did not pursue. The professional immigrant rights movement looked at that and said, “As long as we can make it clear that real people are suffering and harmed, we win.” The broader public looked at that and said, “It’s bad when immigration agents are literally tearing children out of their parents’ arms.” And there was tremendous reporting on Remain in Mexico—for instance, about parents sending their kids across the Rio Grande alone because they were safer in the United States than they were in Matamoros.

A lot of the marginalization of groups like mine and Omar’s in the D.C. conversation is the result of the perception that the only tune we’re playing is, “It’s bad, and people will suffer.” That has created an opportunity for centrists to be the adults in the room and say, “A certain amount of suffering is necessary to have a really mature policy.” That is a legitimate problem in terms of how we make good policy. Omar just raised the subject of credible fear for asylum seekers; that entire policy was designed to comport with an international legal obligation of nonrefoulment, which is an absolute obligation. It’s not that you should make fewer errors in deporting people; it’s that you cannot deport anybody who is going to be persecuted. It’s really hard to make policy based on that principle, because a lot of policymaking is about weighing priorities.

The lesson of thermostatic public opinion is that a lot of people don’t have well-considered positions on the issue. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the values aren’t there. But successfully engineering the values to activate people in a particular environment with a particular set of facts is something that I’m bearish on.

Iber: Omar, do you share that pessimistic description of the state of play?

Jadwat: It’s fair to say that the immigrant rights movement, broadly speaking, has not succeeded in converting the real sympathy of the public into an effective political response or policy change. Pro-immigrant folks have to do a better job of that. But it’s not a matter of a few messaging workshops. It goes well beyond a quick and easy fix.

The fact that we haven’t won this battle doesn’t mean that the die is cast. When you present people in an honest and straightforward way with questions about where this country should be, the answers are not what we’re seeing from the Trump administration. It may not be where the median pro-immigrant group is, either, but it’s a mistake to think that what we’re seeing now is reflective of where the public is generally at.

Lind: I absolutely don’t think the die is cast. Instead, since 2016 or 2017, both the mainstream, center-left #resistance and self-identified leftists have developed a romance for large-scale social change through forms of mass mobilization and mass education. But immigration isn’t like other issues. You can’t start small in the same way. You can’t pressure private-sector actors to carry the weight of social and political change. You can’t legalize people at the local level. So while many people agree that federal immigration policy is far from where we want it to be and that sweeping change is needed, it’s a low-probability, high-reward maneuver to successfully generate mass mobilization. I’m trying to seize any opportunity where it seems like people might want to learn more, or people might be interested in channeling momentary outrage into organizing energy. That’s where I’m focused, rather than hoping that marches in the streets are going to save us.

Jadwat: I do think it is important to think about local organizing as well. The sanctuary policies that the Trump administration is so upset about came out of a movement. It was extremely difficult to take on convincing sheriffs and local officials to keep ICE out of their jails. The professional class of immigration advocates would have told you, and I think did tell people, “Of all the people to advocate on behalf of, you’re going to start with criminal aliens?” But folks in their communities decided that it makes a big difference whether any interaction with the police could end up in a deportation case. So they took on a very difficult fight, place by place. They didn’t succeed everywhere, but there are hundreds of these policies in place around the country because people organized on the local level. It wasn’t about marching, though maybe sometimes they marched. But it remains an incredibly successful example of work that was largely led by community groups. And as you can see from the complaints from the Trump administration, that policy continues to make a big difference in peoples’ lives, even though immigration is largely in the control of the federal government.

Iber: What should the left be thinking about and doing differently in the future to be smarter and more effective in this policy area?

Lind: My go-to example of an organizing success under the Biden administration happened when Texas Governor Greg Abbott started sending buses of migrants to Philadelphia. He was already sending buses to Washington, D.C. and New York City, so the stakes were clear: buses full of people who had nowhere to sleep and few community ties. So the Philly local government and community organizations made sure that that first bus of migrants was welcomed by people who had real shoes for them, who had bus passes, who had a network of places they could stay the night, and who could help them find legal services in the city. In Philly, you never had the bad optics that you ended up with in New York or Chicago. It was on a much smaller scale, but it’s a reminder that, although large groups of migrants are a very powerful visual to activate hawkish and anxious opinions, a successful welcoming and integration operation prevents those optics from arising and is legitimately good for people. The flip side of that, of course, is making sure that people aren’t too afraid to participate in their communities. Being a responsible news consumer includes not overstating things.

Iber: Do you mean that people can still get out into the streets and engage in community organizing—that those avenues are not closed down yet?

Lind: In an environment in which it’s hard to fix misinformation and disinformation, and people rely on trusted connections to give them correct information, it’s difficult to predict who will listen to what you say. And even if you are not talking to anyone who is at immediate risk of deportation, there is a responsibility to think about that possibility. But we can replace some of the anxiety about messaging with efforts to ensure that people are getting the information they need.

Jadwat: The Trump administration is putting a huge amount of pressure on state and local governments to help target immigrant communities in places like school board or city council meetings. Think about a local school official who is getting pressure from threatening executive orders and statements from the Department of Justice about how you can’t shield undocumented people; they’re wondering whether they have to institute a policy that says ICE is welcome to walk into the classroom, and there might also be community members reinforcing that message at their school board meetings.

It’s essential for there to be a strong voice on the other side that reminds that official of their obligation to serve all of their students, and the importance of whatever municipal policies already exist. Remind them that all students are entitled to an equal public education, regardless of immigration status. In many cases, civil servants or public officials who have never thought about immigration on the job are going to be confronted with the issue. Making sure they get input from folks in the community who don’t believe in mass deportation and do believe in the rule of law and people’s rights is extremely important.

Patrick Iber is co-editor of Dissent.

Omar Jadwat is the director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Dara Lind is a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.