Article: In First 100 Days, Trump 2.0 Has Dramatic..

Greater border enforcement and mass deportations were two major pledges made by Donald Trump as he campaigned to reclaim the White House. In its first 100 days, his administration has raced to meet those goals and so many others, issuing a flurry of immigration-related executive actions—at a pace nearly sixfold greater than during the same period in the first Trump term. The administration has tapped the military, federal agencies and databases, and state and local law enforcement, as well as invoked archaic laws previously used only in wartime to accomplish the most sweeping immigration enforcement policy changes in U.S. history. It also has situated immigration enforcement at the heart of its dealings with Mexico, Canada, and other countries in the Western Hemisphere and beyond, marking a sharp shift in U.S. foreign policy.

Even as the number of immigration arrests is up significantly, the current pace of deportations suggests the administration will fall well short of its stated goal of 1 million deportations annually. While the government has not released official data in comprehensive fashion, based on Federal Register notices and selective information shared with news organizations it appears on track to deport roughly half a million people this year—fewer than the 685,000 deportations recorded in fiscal year (FY) 2024 under President Joe Biden. As it has sought to increase removals, the Trump administration shook up leadership at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after just a month in office.

Beyond its intense focus on arrests, detentions, and removals (whether through deportation or “self-deportation”) of an unauthorized immigrant population that the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates stood at 13.7 million as of mid-2023, the administration has also begun remaking other aspects of the U.S. immigration system. It has invoked many policies that will reduce legal immigration both directly and indirectly, ranging from a proposal to restrict birthright citizenship to pausing refugee resettlement and performing greater scrutiny of green-card holders, international students, and intending immigrants. The administration is also seeking to rework the social compact for immigrants, by moving to withhold safety-net public benefits from large swaths of the foreign born and even their U.S.-citizen relatives in mixed-status families.

Within the span of 100 days, the results of this sweeping and sustained set of actions, touching nearly every corner of the U.S. immigration system, have yielded some quick results. U.S. Border Patrol encounters of irregularly arriving migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border plunged to 7,000 in March—the fewest since at least 2000, when the government started publishing monthly apprehension numbers—after the administration declared an “invasion,” sent 10,000 troops to the border, and effectively barred access to asylum there.

The administration also has taken aim at what had been a significant development during the Biden tenure: a population of as many as 4 million unauthorized immigrants who were able to enter or remain lawfully in the country with protections including humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Trump administration has swiftly and systematically dismantled many of those programs and revoked many of these statuses—though courts have kept the protections in place for now amid litigation.

In all, the Trump administration has taken 175 immigration-specific executive actions through April 22, according to MPI analysis. That exceeds the 94 actions of the Biden administration’s first 100 days and is a nearly sixfold increase over the fewer than 30 actions during the same period in Trump’s first term.

These actions have instilled fear in immigrant communities, especially around enforcement operations. Schools are reporting reduced attendance. Farmers and other employers say they worry their workers will be deported. International travel to the United States has decreased as arrests and detentions of several visitors from Canada and Europe have drawn global headlines. And immigrant-rich neighborhoods are seeing a decline in foot traffic and commerce.

Challenges to the Trump immigration agenda are mounting, even as the sweeping nature of the actions and rapid deployment have left immigrant- and civil-rights advocates and lawyers struggling to keep up. The administration faced at least 50 multi-plaintiff legal challenges to its immigration policies as of this writing, and lawsuits on three separate policy issues have already reached the Supreme Court. In their rulings so far, Supreme Court justices have generally affirmed the executive branch’s authority over immigration matters while underscoring immigrants’ access to due process and judicial review. But administration officials’ apparent ignoring of judicial orders to halt deportations to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, as well as to return a wrongly deported Salvadoran man, have prompted concerns about a looming constitutional crisis.

Beyond litigation, the administration faces other constraints implementing its agenda, as was the case during the first term. Primary among them: Congress has yet to provide the vast new enforcement resources that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking.

This article reviews the first 100 days of the second Trump term, including the further invigoration of an already muscular deportation machinery, restrictions on legal immigration and access to benefits, litigation, and what may lie ahead.

Preventing Arrivals and Deporting Unauthorized Immigrants

From Trump’s first day in office, he has prioritized immigration enforcement, marshaling agencies from across the government to control the border and accomplish the goal of mass deportations. Agencies as varied as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been pulled into immigration enforcement. And the administration has lifted historical prohibitions on authorities accessing sensitive government databases such as those operated by the IRS, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify unauthorized immigrants’ locations.

Enforcement at the Increasingly Quiet U.S.-Mexico Border

The administration’s focus on identifying, arresting, and removing unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. interior is aided by the increasingly quiet border. While the Biden administration made significant strides in decreasing unauthorized arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border from the record of 250,000 illegal crossings in December 2023, encounters have dropped even more dramatically in the first months under Trump. This can be attributed in part to ending the CBP One app, which allowed migrants to schedule appointments to arrive at a border port of entry. Under Biden, about 40,000 migrants were allowed to enter the United States per month using this app; the Trump administration has repurposed CBP One for reporting self-deportations and renamed it CBP Home. (So far, at least 5,000 immigrants have reportedly used CBP Home to report they were leaving the country.)

Thus, the Trump administration has effectively ended access to asylum at the Southwest border, which already had been significantly narrowed during Biden’s final year in office. Instead of asylum—which, if granted, can lead to lawful permanent residence (also known as a green card)—DHS officials are only conducting screenings for Convention Against Torture protection, a subsidiary and nonpermanent status that allows noncitizens to be removed to third countries.

In addition to surging the military to the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers, the administration has given the Army control of a 170-square-mile strip of federal borderland called the Roosevelt Reservation, which may be intended to enable troops to detain migrants and other trespassers without running afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act’s limits on using the military for domestic law enforcement. In February, Mexico agreed to send more of its National Guard troops to the border in exchange for a temporary reprieve from U.S. tariffs (Canada has similarly increased security at the U.S. Northern border, amid tariff threats).

A Heightened Focus on Interior Enforcement

Arresting and removing unauthorized immigrants from U.S. communities, a key Trump administration pledge, is much harder and more resource-intensive than quick returns of people crossing the border illegally, which comprised most of the Biden administration’s deportations. In conducting removals from the interior, the Trump administration is facing the same challenges its predecessors did: limited detention capacity, insufficient resources, and immigrants’ assertions of their legal rights.

While DHS has stopped reporting monthly data on removals, NBC reported that ICE removed 4,300 noncitizens from the U.S. interior in February, a slightly higher pace than the average 3,200 per month from FY 2021-24, under Biden, but lower than the 6,800 in the first Trump administration (FY 2017-20) and well below those of the Obama administration (FY 2009-16), when ICE carried out about 12,900 removals from the interior per month. On the second day of Trump’s new term, DHS expanded use of expedited removal, a fast administrative process for removals without a court hearing that had been historically used at the border. Data on removals through this process have not been made public.

Most noncitizens removed from within the United States are arrested by ICE at state and local jails and prisons. To expand the cooperation that facilitates these arrests, ICE has rapidly increased use of 287(g) agreements, which deputize state and local officers to perform immigration functions. Since Trump’s inauguration, the number of such agreements more than tripled from 135 in December 2024 to 456 as of April 23, with an additional 107 applications pending.

The administration also rescinded longstanding guidelines prohibiting most arrests in “sensitive” locations such as schools, faith-based institutions, and hospitals. And it has created new obligations for both unauthorized and certain legally present immigrants, including requiring an estimated 2.2 million to 3.2 million whose biometric record had not been logged with the government to register or face criminal penalties and possible deportation. This marks the first such registration requirement since the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when immigrant men from predominantly Muslim-majority countries were required to register with DHS.

As a result of these measures, ICE arrest rates have approximately doubled since FY 2024, increasing from 310 to about 650 per day as of mid-March. ICE detention capacity also increased from 41,500 beds in FY 2024 to 54,500 as of March, though only about 47,000 noncitizens were detained at that time. Administration officials have called on Congress to fund tens of thousands more detention beds, an increase that will be necessary if DHS is to fully implement the Laken Riley Act—the first bill passed by the 119th Congress and the first major stand-alone immigration bill to become law in 19 years. The act, named for a Georgia college student killed by an unauthorized immigrant from Venezuela, requires DHS to detain noncitizens accused of certain crimes, including low-level violations such as shoplifting.

Given that DHS presently lacks the resources and personnel to ramp up interior deportations to the extent promised, the Trump administration has taken a whole-of-government approach and recruited varying degrees of assistance from agencies including the Defense Department and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and U.S. attorneys. The military in particular has been tapped, providing cargo planes for deportation flights and for the first time detaining some migrants arrested within the United States at the naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Officials have also enlisted other countries as partners, deporting Asian and African migrants to Panama and Costa Rica and invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador. Under an agreement paying the Salvadoran government around $15 million, about 300 Venezuelans and Salvadorans had been deported and later sent by Salvadoran authorities to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison as of mid-April.

These measures have garnered significant attention and controversy worldwide, though many are being challenged in court (see below) and have not yet resulted in deportations on the scale pledged by the president, border “czar” Tom Homan, and other officials.

Sunset for “Twilight” Statuses

With as many as 4 million noncitizens holding liminal (aka twilight) statuses such as TPS as of mid-2023, the Trump administration has looked to eliminate protections provided by previous administrations. It sought an early end to TPS for Haitians and Venezuelans, as well as parole for more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Terminations of these statuses have been challenged in court, but if allowed to take effect could result in many immigrants losing work authorization and protection from deportation. The administration has also paused parolees’ applications for more durable statuses such as asylum and green cards. This month, the administration said it would not extend TPS for about 14,600 Afghans and 7,900 Cameroonians when the protections expire later this year.

Legal Immigration Affected

Despite the predominant attention paid to enforcement, the Trump administration has taken at least 33 actions in its first 100 days that have already or will significantly impact legal immigration. The most direct of these was halting the refugee resettlement program, which has existed in its current form since 1980 and admitted 100,034 refugees in FY 2024. The action derailed the resettlement of more than 100,000 already vetted refugees approved for resettlement this year. The administration has since committed to restarting the program for minority White Afrikaners from South Africa. For immigrants applying for protection from within the United States, the administration has instructed immigration judges to close “legally deficient” asylum cases without holding a hearing.

Arrests of foreign students attending U.S. universities have garnered international attention. The State Department’s “Catch and Revoke” initiative had canceled the visas or immigration records for approximately 1,700 students at more than 270 colleges and universities as of April 23, according to Inside Higher Ed. The American Immigration Lawyers Association estimates the number of affected students could be even higher: almost 5,000 as of April 18.

In some cases, the government canceled visas in response to speech or activities it deemed antisemitic, creating a chilling effect among current and potential students and other immigrants. In other cases, ICE terminated students’ immigration records in an online database, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), which allows certain students to work in campus labs, participate in postgraduate training programs, or change visa statuses. Students have reported not being notified why their visas were terminated, though some terminations appear to have followed infractions such as speeding or driving under the influence. Some students have left the United States to avoid detention, while others have challenged their record deletions or arrests as violations of their free speech and due process rights. Nearly 40 lawsuits had been filed over record deletions as of April 18, according to Bloomberg Law.

Similarly, the administration has sought to revoke visas of multiple noncitizens who allegedly participated in pro-Palestinian activities, relying on a rarely used section of law allowing deportations of individuals posing “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” One prominent case is that of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student whose lawful permanent residence was revoked for participating in pro-Palestinian protests. Another is that of Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Öztürk, arrested after writing an op-ed criticizing her school’s response to the Gaza invasion.

Less publicized are a swath of other changes that may have already impacted legal immigration and temporary visits to the United States. Increased scrutiny of tourists, visa holders, and green-card holders has led to the arrest and detention of noncitizens arriving at U.S. airports, resulting in Canada, China, and a number of European countries issuing travel warnings to their nationals. Anecdotal reports suggest many foreigners have reconsidered travel to the United States, especially Canadians angered by Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex the country. Overseas visitors to the United States (not counting those from Mexico or Canada) declined by nearly 12 percent in March compared to March 2024. The administration has reportedly considered imposing travel bans or visa restrictions on 43 countries, which would go far beyond the scope of the first Trump administration’s ban on arrivals from seven countries, but no plan has been announced as of this writing.

Certain technical changes have also made it more difficult to obtain visas and other immigration benefits. Under the Biden administration, a practice of waiving more visa interviews alleviated lingering pandemic-era backlogs at U.S. consulates abroad; in February, the Trump administration greatly scaled back those waivers. Combined with the planned firing of State Department staff and closure of consulates abroad, these changes are expected to lengthen visa wait times.

At the same time, Trump has promised a new “gold card” offering legal status and a pathway to citizenship for foreign nationals who pay $5 million. How this can be done under existing law is unclear, though details are expected soon.

Limits on Access to Services and Public Benefits

In slashing operations across government, the administration has cut a range of benefits and services to reduce federal obligations towards immigrants of all statuses. The effort is at least partly intended to make conditions in the United States inhospitable for the unauthorized and thus encourage self-deportation. A multimillion-dollar ad campaign has also been launched encouraging self-deportation. Although unauthorized immigrants are already barred from accessing most federal assistance, the Trump administration has told the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other agencies to take all measures necessary to limit their access to public benefits. And it has placed the Social Security numbers of more than 6,000 noncitizens in the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File for dead people, effectively halting their ability to work legally. In some cases the administration has claimed these actions targeted only terrorists or criminals, though it has not provided evidence.

Among other actions, the administration has:

Terminated funding for the federal Citizenship and Integration Grant Program for citizenship classes, naturalization application assistance, and integration services.
Declared English the official language of the United States, eliminating requirements for agencies to make federal programs accessible to English learners, affecting immigrants and many U.S. born alike.
Given stop-work orders to legal service providers, barring them from representing unaccompanied immigrant children in deportation proceedings and providing “know-your-rights” presentations to adults in ICE detention.
Reportedly considered eliminating mixed-status families’ access to public housing, which could affect U.S. citizens in those households.

How many unauthorized immigrants self-deport as a result of these measures remains to be seen. Regardless, they may have a chilling effect on the participation of qualified immigrants and the U.S. born in programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as was the case in Trump’s first term.

Is a Constitutional Crisis Imminent?

Coming into office, the Trump administration aimed to push legal boundaries and immigrant advocates prepared for a litigation marathon. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Democratic attorneys general had brought at least 50 lawsuits to challenge Trump administration immigration policies as of April 22 (see Table 1). While many cases remain in early stages, courts have blocked or slowed high-profile policies including the attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, which mainstream legal scholars have long said is guaranteed in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Three appellate courts have upheld nationwide injunctions blocking the administration from restricting birthright citizenship and, in an unusual move, the Supreme Court ordered oral arguments on the topic for May 15 (arguments usually conclude in April).

In the other immigration cases, the Supreme Court has not yet decided on the underlying merits, but rather ruled on narrow jurisdictional and procedural grounds. In Trump v. J.G.G., a case concerning removals to El Salvador under the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act, the court ruled on April 7 that claims challenging such deportations can be brought only in habeas corpus petitions in the jurisdictions where migrants are detained. Yet importantly, justices also unanimously affirmed that immigrants are entitled to due process and judicial review. Twelve days later, the court temporarily blocked the deportation of certain other noncitizens under the Alien Enemies Act, in A.A.R.P., et al, v. Trump, after the ACLU alleged they had not been given sufficient notice or opportunity to challenge their removals pursuant to the Trump v. J.G.G. decision.

In the case of Kilmar Abrego García, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite being protected from removal, the high court found the district court judge properly ordered DHS to “facilitate” his return. Despite significant public outcry, the administration has made clear it has no intention of returning Abrego García, claiming he is a gang member.

In these and other cases, there is active concern whether the government has complied with judges’ orders. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia has found probable cause that his orders to turn around planes deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador were not complied with. Similarly, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland has accused the administration of trying to “evade compliance” with her order to seek Abrego García’s return. In another case regarding the halting of refugee resettlement, the administration has yet to resettle refugees who were already conditionally approved for travel before Trump paused the program, as ordered, which the administration has partly attributed to capacity constraints.

As other cases move through the courts and new lawsuits are filed, it is almost certain that more will reach the Supreme Court, with likely important implications for U.S. immigration policy and potentially broader issues. Immigration policy may become the forum for testing the administration’s adherence to constitutional principles of due process and compliance with judicial orders.

What to Expect in the Remaining 1,361 Days

The breadth and reach of immigration activity in Trump’s first 100 days are the most sweeping since at least the period following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Many changes are, in fact, more expansive than the post-9/11 actions, which were designed to prevent terrorism and therefore were at least somewhat targeted in scope.

Relying on policy blueprints laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and recommendations of America First Legal (a group established by key Trump advisor Stephen Miller), the administration entered office prepared to quickly remake the entire U.S. government into a well-oiled machine for immigration enforcement. These actions have created a heightened level of fear and uncertainty for immigrants legal and unauthorized alike, their families, and communities. Even U.S. citizens have been caught up in arrests and fear deportation, particularly as Trump has called for removing “homegrown” citizens with criminal convictions to El Salvador, in a move that would be wholly unprecedented.

Still, early days have shown the administration faces significant roadblocks to deportations on the scale it has promised. While border arrivals slowed at the start of Trump’s first term, they began to increase after six months and reached a peak of just under 1 million encounters in FY 2019, which was at the time the most since FY 2006. That surge forced the administration to shift attention to the border, detracting from interior removals, which never reached the much higher levels seen during President Barack Obama’s two terms. Republican majorities in Congress now seem set to provide tens of billions of additional dollars for immigration enforcement, increasing ICE’s detention budget as much as sixfold, though negotiations over other budget issues have delayed passage, perhaps until the summer.

For now, the Trump administration will likely continue to ramp up deportations with all available tools and resources, especially as it explores new strategies to rescind protections and expedite removals with minimal due process. While its goal of 1 million deportations a year may be difficult to achieve, the administration’s impact across the immigration system is nonetheless likely to be historic.

The authors thank Alejandro Urbina-Bernal and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh for research assistance.

Sources

Ainsley, Julia and Laura Strickler. 2025. Trump Deported Fewer People Last Month than Biden a Year Ago, but Border Crossings Have Plummeted. NBC News, March 10, 2025. Available online.

Arsndorf, Isaac and Jeff Stein. 2024. Trump’s Executive Action Strategy: Go Ahead, Sue Me. The Washington Post, December 14, 2024. Available online.

Berzon, Alexandra, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard. 2025. Social Security Lists Thousands of Migrants as Dead to Prompt Them to “Self-Deport.” The New York Times, April 10, 2025. Available online.

Chisti, Muzaffar and Jessica Bolter. 2021. Border Challenges Dominate, but Biden’s First 100 Days Mark Notable Under-the-Radar Immigration Accomplishments. Migration Information Source, April 26, 2021. Available online.

D’Avanzo, Ben. 2025. Five Things to Know about the Executive Order Targeting Immigrants and Federal Assistance Programs. National Immigration Law Center (NILC), February 20, 2025. Available online.

Durbin, Dee-Ann. 2025. US Expected a Big Travel Year, but Overseas Visitors — Angered by Trump — Are Heading Elsewhere. Associated Press, April 8, 2025. Available online.

Gelatt, Julia and Kathleen Bush-Joseph. 2025. Explainer: ICE Arrests and Deportations from the U.S. Interior. Migration Policy Institute (MPI) explainer, February 2025. Available online.

Inside Higher Ed. 2025. International Student Visas Revoked. Updated April 23, 2025. Available online.

Janetsky, Megan. 2025. Mexico Deploys the First of 10,000 National Guard Troops to US Border after Trump’s Tariff Threat. Associated Press, February 5, 2025. Available online.

Just Security. 2025. Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions. Updated April 14, 2025. Available online.

Kelly, Makena and Vittoria Elliott. 2025. DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants. Wired, April 18, 2025. Available online.

Kreighbaum, Andrew. 2025. Lawyers Skeptical of Trump DOJ Claim on Foreign Students’ Status. Bloomberg Law, April 18, 2025. Available online.

Lee, Michael. 2025. Thousands Leave Country Voluntarily amid Trump Self-Deport Push, DHS Says. Fox News, April 9, 2025. Available online.

Pillai, Drishti, Samantha Artiga, and Matthew Rae. 2025. Potential Impacts of Increased Immigration Enforcement on School Attendance and Funding. KFF, April 3, 2025. Available online.

U.S. Border Patrol. 2020. Southwest Border Sectors: Total Encounters by Fiscal Year. Washington, DC: U.S. Border Patrol. Available online.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 2016. Congressional Budget Justification FY 2016. Washington, DC: DHS. Available online.

—. 2021. Fiscal Year 2021 Congressional Justification. Washington, DC: DHS. Available online.

—. 2023. Fiscal Year 2023 ICE Annual Report. Washington, DC: DHS. Available online.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS). 2025. Immigration Enforcement and Legal Processes Monthly Tables. Updated January 16, 2025. Available online.

White House. 2025. Executive Order: Designating English as the Official Language of the United States. March 1, 2025. Available online.

—. 2025. Executive Order: Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders. February 19, 2025. Available online. 

—. 2025. Executive Order: Protecting the American People Against Invasion. January 20, 2025. Available online.