President Donald Trump’s return to office triggered a rapid change in immigration enforcement operations. Major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Chicago, and Atlanta have seen an uptick in raids conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that enforces federal laws on border control, customs, trade, and immigration.
Past Administration Approaches
ICE deportations and raids are not a new phenomenon. During Barack Obama’s presidency, his administration prioritized deporting criminals. As the former President stated in a 2014 Address to the Nation on Immigration, “Even as we are a nation of immigrants, we’re also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable, especially those who may be dangerous. That’s why, over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children.”
18% of ICE detainees do not have a criminal record or pending criminal charges. In previous years, the percentage of ICE detainees with no criminal record has averaged 4-11%
During Obama’s second term, undocumented immigrants who passed a criminal background check were allowed to stay in the U.S. temporarily without being deported if they paid taxes. In 2011, the Obama administration released an ICE memo that formalized protections for sensitive locations. Sensitive locations refer to places that are vulnerable or meant to be respected, such as schools, hospitals, and churches. For example, ICE agents arriving at schools could inflict trauma, fear, and confusion on growing adolescents.
Trump’s first presidency had different policy goals compared to the Obama Administration. The administration’s focus on immigration emphasized building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. By the end of his first term, the border wall remained unfinished. Additionally, according to the Washington Post’s analysis of ICE data, the number of undocumented immigrants detained by ICE without a prior criminal background was nearly double the average compared to the Obama administration.
The Biden administration temporarily halted the building of the border wall, but construction restarted in 2023. On April 27, 2021, the Biden administration extended ICE’s “sensitive locations” policy to courthouses.
NOTE: Fiscal years do not align exactly with presidential cycles, meaning that there may be some overlap between presidential cycles.
This analysis relies on data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a non-profit organization founded in 1989 at Syracuse University, which collects and distributes immigration and deportation data from the government. Figure 1 compares the total deportations conducted by ICE by administration. This figure displays removals by ICE and excludes deportations made at the border and due to COVID-19. Overall, the Obama administration had the highest number of deportations compared to Trump’s first term and Biden’s term.
To provide context for Trump’s second term, Figure 2 compares the number of deportations during the first 50 days of the presidency.
In a 2017 Fiscal Year report, ICE attributed the lower deportation numbers during the first Trump Administration to a “deterrent effect of strong interior enforcement,” implying that the administration’s stricter policies toward undocumented immigrants reduced illegal immigration.
Current Era of Deportations
A central part of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign was focused on deporting the estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The administration states that the raids are targeting undocumented criminals; however, as of March 28, according to TRAC, 18% of ICE detainees do not have a criminal record or pending criminal charges. In previous years, the percentage of ICE detainees with no criminal record has averaged 4-11%.
This jump is due to the current administration carrying out more collateral arrests. Arrests are considered “collateral” when the arrest is based on factors irrelevant to whether the suspect is guilty of a criminal charge.
The majority of these voters believed that immigrants in the U.S. illegally increase crime, take advantage of public resources such as housing, education, and health care, and overall worsen the U.S. economy.
For Trump’s second presidency, the administration revoked limitations on sensitive locations where ICE can detain people, which may be contributing to the increase in collateral arrests. Five days after the sensitive locations policy was revoked, one of the first reported ICE arrests at a church occurred in DeKalb County, GA. The detained individual had a work visa, reportedly sought asylum, and had no criminal record.
A Misinformation Campaign
Why has there been a shift in the Executive Branch’s policies and rhetoric about undocumented immigrants?
President Trump has claimed throughout his campaign and presidency that his predecessors didn’t enforce immigration laws and that the US borders are being invaded. Furthermore, in a press release, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated, “Our team at ICE will help us continue moving forward to make America SAFE again,” suggesting that the country had previously been in danger due to the presence of illegal immigrants.
A 2024 Pew Research Center study highlights how Trump supporters’ views align with the tonal shift, finding that 87% of Trump supporters were concerned about undocumented immigrants. The majority of these voters believed that immigrants in the U.S. illegally increase crime, take advantage of public resources such as housing, education, and health care, and overall worsen the U.S. economy.
On the other hand, in 2020, a federal study conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety found that between 2012 and 2018, undocumented immigrants in Texas had lower criminal arrest and conviction rates when compared to U.S.-born citizens and legal immigrants. Similarly, a research study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens.
Researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Alabama, Kennesaw State University, and Georgia State University compared immigration rates with crime rates for 200 metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2016. They found that, on average, the immigrant population in the U.S. grew by 137% between 1980 and 2016, and the average crime rate fell by 12% over that same period. Crime rates in Atlanta follow a similar trend. In the Metro Atlanta area, crime has decreased by 51% as the immigrant population has increased in the region.
In recent weeks, the US government websites have removed key information on the crime rates of undocumented immigrants, which are widely used to display that documented and undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes.
Advocacy/Support in Metro Atlanta
The rhetoric of the current administration has sparked fear in the Atlanta immigrant community. Ten days after the Presidential election, an alarming number of Latino teenagers in Georgia received texts saying that they were “set to be deported” by immigration authorities. While these messages were fake and meant to spark fear in the Latino-American community, they triggered a reaction in advocacy groups such as the Latin-American Association of Atlanta (LAA).
Santiago Marquez, the CEO and Executive Director of LAA, shared that they responded by planning and providing information to the community. LAA has been helping their clients prepare for what might happen if they’re in a mixed-status family (undocumented parents with a U.S.-born child). Marquez said, “If mom or dad, or both, were undocumented, but their kids are American citizens, thinking about what would happen if you were deported, what would happen to your kids? Who would take care of your kids and your assets?” He asserted that these mixed-status families are at risk and said, “For us, that’s always a concern because we serve a lot of people [who] are already having difficult times. The folks that we serve are the essential workforce. Family separation and deporting a breadwinner or a parent just creates complete and total hardship on that family,” he continued.
Immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens.
Moreover, LAA works to open opportunities for job placement and education. They host job fairs and job readiness programs for individuals looking for work. Additionally, they provide English classes for individuals who are struggling with English. Marquez stated, “We tend to target entrepreneurship for women because 70% of our clients are women, and many of them have to bring in revenue for their families. But, they’re struggling to do so, and in many cases, entrepreneurship is a way for them to generate some revenue to help out the family.”
Marquez shared that the scale of these programs is important because of the number of Latinos in Atlanta; he said, “There [are] over a million Latinos here in Georgia… if you look at the stats, in 25 years, [Latinos are] going to be 21% of the metro Atlanta area. Our goal is to help our Latino community not only stabilize but thrive and participate in the American dream.”
Campus Impact and Concerns
Since Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. State Department has canceled more than 300 visas, with the majority being student visas. The purge targeted students who were pro-Palestine and marched in protests on their respective college campuses. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated, “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our universities and campuses.” As of April 8, there have been no reports of visa rescissions at Georgia Tech.
Judicial Challengers
On January 27, a day after the first deportation took place at a church, a coalition of Quaker meetings sued the DHS to end ICE raids at churches. The suit alleges that these raids violate the First Amendment, specifically, an individual’s right to worship and associate freely because the presence of armed government agents might disrupt the peace.
The same coalition, represented by Democracy Forward, requested courts to temporarily block the policy. On February 24, the U.S. District Court of Maryland issued an order that prohibited ICE officials from entering houses of worship to conduct immigration enforcement operations.
