Immigration was a dominant theme of President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress on March 4, an antagonistic marathon of self-congratulation, Democrat-goading and lies. Trump repeatedly used the occasion to highlight his administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant moves—blaming former President Joe Biden (“the worst president in American history!”) for historic levels of border crossings. Away from the noise, a national crackdown on undocumented migrants rolls out, fueling fear across communities—and promising soaring profits for the private prisons industry.
Trump falsely accused Biden of letting “21 million” undocumented people cross the border, claiming “virtually all of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums, were released into our country.” The number is false and the depictions a gross distortion. He added that, “illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded. Ever.”
According to Reuters, the Trump administration reports making 8,300 arrests at the southern border in February, the lowest monthly total recorded since 2000. For comparison, in February 2024, 141,000 people were arrested at the southern border. Trump claimed his anti-immigrant positions are dissuading people from coming, yet many other variables apply.
Meanwhile, a March 5 congressional hearing, designed by Republicans to attack sanctuary cities that won’t comply with federal mass-deportation efforts, reportedly backfired, as Democratic mayors used the platform to make the case for more compassionate policies.
But already, Trump’s policies are causing chaos and heartbreak for many communities. Most significantly, he repealed a Biden policy that avoided detaining migrants with civil and low-level criminal violations, instead prioritizing those with higher-level charges. Now, anyone without legal status is at risk of deportation. Detentions of people without criminal records reportedly quadrupled during Trump’s first month. Yet the Trump administration is currently deporting people at a slower rate than during Biden’s last year in office.
“The community is very much afraid.”
Bill Ong Hing is a the founding director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law. He works with hundreds of clients, predominantly from Central America and Mexico, who have active asylum applications and are facing removal proceedings.
He told Filter that while his clients have not yet faced detention and deportation, the immigration court system has been greatly disrupted by the Trump administration’s orders to detain more people with low-level criminal proceedings or none. A wave of firings of immigration judges is worsening what was already a huge backlog of court cases.
“The community is very much afraid,” Professor Hing told Filter. “It’s not unusual where my students and I show up after Catholic mass at a church where we are invited, and we are there from 1:30 to 6:30, interviewing 90 people with immigration questions and worries.”
“Some of these folks have remedies, some don’t,” he continued. “Some are DACA recipients, worried about the end of that; some have citizen children, worried their children will lose citizenship. This part of my [career] is completely chaotic.”
Trump promised at his inauguration to deport “millions and millions” of immigrants, but the pace of deportations so far has not come close to that level. In February, NBC reported that sources close to Trump described him as angry about it—“it’s driving him nuts,” one official said. Trump’s then-acting ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) director, Caleb Vitello, urged agents to meet a daily quota of detaining 1,200-1,400 people. But actual daily arrests have ranged from 1,100 down to 300. To deport even one million people per year, the administration would have to reach a minimum daily average of over 2,700.
“They know they can’t just walk down the street and start racially profiling people. Once they do that, many immigrant and civil rights attorneys are waiting.”
“They don’t have the resources for a million deportations,” Hing said. “I’m sure the head of Homeland Security and ICE officials are trying to light fires under local agents, but there’s only so much they can do.”
“There’s a lack of personnel and also, they know they can’t just walk down the street in a community with immigrants, and start racially profiling people,” he continued. “Once they do that, many immigrant and civil rights attorneys are waiting—you’re going to see so many civil lawsuits against ICE. The Trump administration knows that, they can’t just do this openly.”
A related issue for the Trump administration is detention capacity: Existing facilities don’t have nearly enough space for the kinds of numbers Trump wants arrested. ICE has reported that the total number of people it currently holds in immigration detention, 44,000, has already surpassed the 41,500 it has funding to hold.
This explains why the federal government is looking to strike new dea;s with local jails and private prison facilities to add capacity. GEO Group and CoreCivic, two major private prison operators, have announced plans to add capacity of 1,000 and 800, respectively. CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger told investors that this is “one of the most exciting periods” in his career. The company is now investing $40 million in existing facilities and transportation in anticipation of new ICE contracts.
In February, CoreCivic announced plans to reopen the Leavenworth Detention Center in Kansas City, as the Beacon reported. The federal pretrial facility closed in 2021 following numerous problems with staffing and safety. Reopening it as an immigration detention facility will require approval from the Leavenworth planning commission and city commission. A first hearing is set for April 7.
“Unfortunately, I do see a ramp-up of detention coming. I do think they will get more money from Congress and we haven’t seen the worst yet.”
Meanwhile, GEO Group has even bigger plans. It is reopening the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which used to operate as a smaller immigration detention facility, with a new capacity of 1,000. The company announced a new, 15-year contract with ICE worth a total of $1.2 billion. It would be the largest detention site in the New York metropolitan area, and nearly double ICE detention capacity in the region, as The City reported.
New Jersey has for years seen concerted efforts by immigration activists to shut down its remaining ICE facilities. The only detention site currently operating in New Jersey is Elizabeth, which holds 270 people. The nearest large facility is four hours away, in Pennsylvania.
Both GEO and CoreCivic, Hing explained, have plenty of detention facilities throughout the country that could be used or expanded to accommodate more people under potential new ICE contracts. And outside of the private market, ICE can simply go public—to local jails. It’s likely to find sheriffs willing to sign lucrative contracts to detain immigrants, because counties will receive a rate, per-person per-day, that is much higher than the amount of money required to incarcerate someone.
The current lack of detention capacity “is a challenge, but it’s not insurmountable” for the Trump administration, Hing said. “It’s a matter of money—will Congress appropriate more money for detention? Because it’s not cheap … Unfortunately, I do see a ramp-up of detention coming. They may not end up using Guantanamo, but I do think they will get more money from Congress and we haven’t seen the worst yet.”
Photograph via ICE Facebook page
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