Review Question

The Trump administration is making massive capacity and infrastructure investments to achieve this goal, notwithstanding criticism from skeptics who doubt that this historic initiative is economically and logistically feasible. As an example, one estimate is that the deportation program, enabled by the “Big, Beautiful Bill” signed into law two months ago, could cost US taxpayers $1.4 trillion over the next few years. 

The capacity investments are concentrated in three critical areas (arrests, detention facilities, removals). Under the new federal spending allocations, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received an additional $75 billion. An additional $45 billion has been allocated to build new detention facilities, doubling the current capacity. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also considering the purchase of more passenger airplanes to expedite the mass deportation program and it has even negotiated detention agreements with third countries. 

Presently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is logging in 2,100 arrests per day which is about 70% of the federal policy goal. Nevertheless, the architects of the program might find that progress on the remaining 30% of the mass deportation goal is going to be harder to achieve. Sources of possible disruption include ballooning operating costs, domestic court challenges (eg., especially in traditionally "democratic" cities like Chicago), a populist backlash (eg., 2026 mid-term elections), as well as diplomatic resistance exercised by some migrant receiving countries (eg., those facing loss of overseas remittances amidst an economic recession).