Donald Trump To Kick Start Mass Deportation Plan

This summer at the Republican National Convention, hundreds of attendees held signs calling for "Mass Deportation Now!"

When former President Donald Trump took the stage on the convention's final night, he vowed to initiate "the largest deportation operation in the history of our country" if reelected.

Trump's promise of mass deportations has become a central theme of his 2024 campaign, frequently highlighted in his rallies, the official Republican Party platform, and a recent discussion with billionaire and X owner Elon Musk.

However, the Trump administration's own record underscores the significant challenges—and potential impossibility—of executing such a sweeping pledge.

Internal emails and documents obtained by NPR through a Freedom of Information Act request provide a glimpse into the early challenges faced by immigration authorities under the Trump administration. From the outset, officials scrambled to expand detention capacity in response to directives from the White House. However, these records also reveal how bureaucratic obstacles hindered their efforts, ultimately limiting the administration's ability to scale up immigration enforcement to the desired extent.

On January 26, 2017—just a day after President Trump signed two executive orders on immigration—a senior detention official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) circulated an email titled "Proposed Facility Activations."

The email, which has not been previously reported, outlined approximately 12,000 detention beds potentially available for ICE. It also detailed plans to begin negotiations for new or expanded contracts "immediately." The vast majority of these beds were in facilities operated by private detention companies.

"We must develop a plan to ensure activation is not unnecessarily delayed due to sheer volume," wrote Tae Johnson, then ICE’s assistant director of custody management. Johnson, who later served as the agency's acting director under President Biden, also recommended staggering facility openings to avoid them "competing against each other."

LIVE UPDATE_