Observe a deportation in its last stages by visiting Tijuana and walking up to the border wall. An unremarkable metal door sits at the boundary of a Mexican highway. A Mexican official will open the Mexican side’s padlock every morning, and an American immigration agent will open the U.S. side’s padlock every morning. This results in the forced return to Mexico of dozens, if not hundreds, of people. Some seek refuge in nearby shelters, while others pitch tents outside the entrance in the vain hope that being so close would increase their chances of gaining entry again. Under Trump, that deportation door was frequently used. However, Joe Biden may be the president who has made the most use of it.
In his 92-minute speech at this month’s Republican National Convention, Trump mercilessly criticized the Biden-Harris administration for Biden’s immigration record and accused the president of opening the border. Based on his remarks, you would not have thought that.
As Trump roared, “Under the Trump administration, if you came in illegally, you were apprehended immediately and deported!” The standing throng hoisted “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” banners. “That’s why, in order to ensure the safety of our family, the Republican platform pledges to initiate the most massive deportation operation that our nation has ever seen.”
There was no counterprograming offered by Biden while he was recovering from a case of COVID-19 at his Delaware beach property. Additionally, after assuming the position of vice president, Kamala Harris—now widely believed to be the Democratic nominee—has notably avoided discussing immigration. One possible explanation is that the most robust defense offered by Harris and Biden would be met with tremendous opposition from their liberal base. Biden apologized for the unprecedented number of deportations during the Obama-Biden administration and campaigned in 2020 on a pledge to halt the practice. Therefore, it will be difficult for Biden or Harris to make a straightforward claim during their 2024 campaigns: that their administration has deported more migrants than Trump’s administration has in its whole history.
Trump has boasted, almost joyously, that he will deport “millions” of people annually if he regains the presidency, an action he claims Biden is too weak to carry out, because the majority of Americans are unaware of the sheer number of people who have been removed from the nation during the Biden-Harris administration. He uses this to support his claim that Biden is old and ailing. Trump has painted Biden as a sluggish octogenarian who is unable to drive more than 10 mph, if deportations are the accelerator. The truth is that Biden has his foot firmly planted on the accelerator. The nation’s deportation infrastructure has been stretched to its breaking point by the rapid removal of migrants from the United States under Biden’s presidency. Even if Trump were to regain the presidency next year, it is unclear how he could surpass him.
The expulsion of migrants was initiated by Biden upon assuming office. During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in the spring of 2021, I visited a Tijuana refugee camp where some of the migrants were so optimistic that they waved “BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT” banners outside their tents in the hopes that the incoming president would grant them entry. U.S. Border Patrol agents swiftly frog-marched the majority of the migrants who passed back through the deportation gate and into the dismal camps on cartel territory, a harsh reality check for many. Some were rushed aboard ICE planes and returned to Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, or some other place. During Biden’s first two years as president, the number of individuals crossing the border increased, leading to a rapid increase in these expulsions. Like Taylor Swift’s private plane, ICE charter planes zipped all over the world. Tom Cartwright, a researcher with the advocacy group Witness at the Border, found that during the early Biden years, there were more internal immigration missions than ever before.
A half-century-long sea change in immigration policy, Title 42 paved the way for Biden’s expulsion regime. Although Biden reversed a number of Trump’s immigration restrictions upon becoming president, he did not repeal the public health statute Title 42, which was Trump’s most significant ban. Title 42 granted the president the authority to expeditiously deport foreign nationals without the usual judicial procedure, with the pandemic serving as a pretext. Biden deported more than 2.8 million foreign nationals in his first two years as president. I am astounded by that figure. There were a grand total of just 2 million deportees throughout Trump’s presidency.
Please note the following crucial caveat. Despite the expulsion of millions of migrants in Biden’s initial years as president, the actual number of deportations decreased. Deportations and expulsions are distinct processes, but they both involve removal: The occurrence of expulsions under Title 42 was novel. The subject was typically apprehended close to the border, and the proceedings could be completed swiftly and without a trial. Those apprehended in the interior of the country are frequently the targets of deportations, which occur only when an immigration judge issues a formal removal order. Deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were below 200,000 in Biden’s first two years as president, the lowest annual figure since Trump took office.
It could be because Biden was opposed to deportations. Although his government may have felt at ease expelling newly arrived migrants, the situation is quite different when it comes to deporting long-term immigrants. Deportations decreased in the early Biden administration, and that reluctance was probably a contributing factor. Additionally, the whole nation’s deportation apparatus, including ICE, had been ordered to assemble at the border. Government employees were diverted from detaining individuals in the interior to help the Border Patrol, as ICE agents were sent by the administration to deal with the large influx of new immigrants. The ICE Air flights were already at capacity due to the large number of recent border crossers; no further deportees could be accommodated.
Deportations reached record highs the moment Title 42 expired in May 2023. Biden “removed or returned” 775,000 unlawful immigrants between May 2023 and May 2024, according to data research from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. For the period beginning in 2010, that represents a record high. (To give you an idea of scale, with Title 42 in place, Trump’s annual removal total was less than 612,000.)
Maybe Trump can squeeze a little more juice out of the deportation system and boost his numbers if he gets office next year. Nonetheless, the country’s deportation system appears to be reaching a breaking point. There may not be enough resources to deport that many more individuals at this time.
According to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the pro-immigration nonprofit advocacy group the American Immigration Council, “there are just some structural limitations in the system” regardless of the authority figures in control. Reichlin-Melnick has lately created a chart that tracks the enforcement activities against immigrants under Obama, Trump, and Biden. He is known to spend more time with the detailed statistics on immigration enforcement compared to most. Observing the graphic is astonishment enough. The remarkably constant monthly deportation rate has persisted across all administrations; it fluctuates, but it has never exceeded 30,000. According to Reichlin-Melnick, this could be the system’s top output.
