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The Trump administration is taking people — from their homes, workplaces, courthouses, and the streets — on an extraordinary scale. They’re holding many of them for months before deporting them. Some are sent to countries they don’t know. Some are U.S. citizens. Some are dying in custody.
The Trump administration calls this mass deportation and says it’s “improving Americans’ quality of life.” A growing majority of Americans disagree.
Because the program is unfolding in individual raids, across hundreds of courtrooms, private prisons, and government flights, it’s hard to see the big picture. Today we’re pulling back from the daily torrent to show you what this campaign adds up to: Who is being taken, what happens to them, what this campaign costs, and what it is doing to the country.
**How Many People?**The U.S. governmentsays it deportedmore than 675,000 people in 2025. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims 2.2 million more left the country voluntarily, which the administration calls “self-deportation.” There’s reason to doubt that number. Ananalysis by the Center for Migration Studiesconcluded the true figure is closer to one-tenth of that. As of July,about 132,000 people had leftthe U.S. through DHS’s billion-dollar “self-deportation” program, called Project Homecoming, and another 70,000 were signed up to leave. (The contract wentto a firmthat had never served as a lead government contractor and is run by a MAGA businessman. DHSitself concludedthe contract award had the “appearance of impropriety.”)**What Do Numbers Mean, Anyway?**To understand the scale, it helps to know how many undocumented immigrants live in the U.S. Trump claims there are more than 25 million, while his alliesoffer even more exaggerated figures. There are likely a little over 15 million, down from a peak of 15.8 million in mid-2024, according to thelatest estimate by the Migration Policy Institute.
Who’s Targeted: Trump and his allies haverepeatedlyinsistedthey are targeting criminals, “the worst of the worst.” They also use dehumanizing language about immigrants. “They’re not humans,”Trump has said. “They’re animals.” Historically, ICE prioritized arresting people with criminal records. The Trump administration changed that. Arrests ofnon-citizens without criminal convictionsare up 8.7-fold. People with no criminal recordnow make upover 70% of detainees.
Citizens: More than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents, according to aProPublica investigation. Citizens have been beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents, many at peaceful anti-ICE protests;two have been killed. ICE’suse of crowd control weapons, like tear gas and rubber bullets, has led to blindings and traumatic brain injuries. AnACLU investigation foundthat hundreds of journalists, elected officials, community observers, and children, many of them U.S. citizens, were detained, targeted, or “subjected to law enforcement misconduct” in 2025.
Children: The Marshall Project found that the Trump administration hasdetained thousands of children, roughly ten times as many as the Biden administration. Asked about detaining kids, an ICE spokesperson told the Marshall Project that “being in detention is a choice,” a phrase theagencyhasrepeatedlyused.
From the Border to Your Door: The administrationshifted immigration enforcementaway from the border and deeper into the country, while pushing agents to meetunprecedented arrest quotas. It hasreassigned tens of thousands of federal agentsfrom other agencies to immigration cases. That includes80% of special agentsat the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, resulting in fewer investigations of drug and gun crimes. Italso includes23% of FBI agents — up to 40% in some large offices — who might otherwise be investigating crimes like terrorism. Thanks to theSupreme Court, immigration agents have alsobeen given broader latitudeto use race, language, and occupation when decidingwhom to stop or question. DHS claimed in an internal memo that its agentscould enter homes without a judicial warrant, contradicting decades of legal precedent andpotentially the Constitution.Detention: The U.S. is setting records for the number of peopleheld in immigration detention. Republicans in Congresshanded ICE $45 billion to detain immigrantsthrough Trump’s second term; that’s more than the last three administrationsspent on detention, combined. The Trump administration has pushed a “mandatory detention” policy. For decades, detention was generally reserved for people considered dangerous or likely to flee. Others were oftenreleased on bondwhile their cases moved through the courts. Under Trump, ICE reversed that policy. Nowthe vast majority of those takenare held until they receive a final deportation decision, which can meanmonths locked up, often for people with no criminal record. Advocates argue thismakes the process so difficult that people give up, andintimidates others who fear they could be next. More than 400 judges across the country, nominated by every president since Reagan,have ruled against“mandatory detention,” and theSupreme Court will consider the issue later this year.
Keep reading to find out…
What conditions are like inside immigration detention centersWho profits from detaining immigrantsHow much each deportation costsThe total cost of mass deportation, including its knock-on impact on the economyHow deportations affect jobs and wages for U.S.-born workersWhether deportations have made housing more affordable, as the Trump administration claimsWhat people think about Trump’s mass deportation campaign**Big picture takeaways
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