Trump's mass deportation plan could clog immigration courts for years
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Central American immigrant families leave ICE custody in McAllen, Texas, on June 11,2018, pending future immigration court hearings. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
It's one thing to call for the largest deportation in American history. It's another to pull it off logistically, given the highly complex process of spotting, detaining, holding and evicting people in the U.S. illegally.
Why it matters: The judicial process — one small piece of a long, expensive deportation machinery — illustrates vividly the complexity ahead.
The big picture: The U.S. immigration system's backlog of 3.7 million court cases will take four years to resolve at the current pace — but that could balloon to 16 years under President-elect Trump's mass deportation plan, according to an Axios analysis.
- Without a huge increase in immigration judges, millions of new cases would flood the non-criminal system. Trump's administration likely would need new detention centers nationwide to hold people suspected of being in the U.S. without authorization — possibly for years.
- The administration also would have to set up a wide range of monitoring systems for immigrants who aren't detained but are awaiting court dates.
- Immigration experts estimate the whole operation could cost taxpayers $150 billion to $350 billion.
Catch up quick: Immigrants suspected of being in the country without authorization are afforded due process by the nation's immigration court system, which is also where asylum seekers and other immigrants who may have legal avenues to live in the U.S. make their case.
- Of the 3.7 million pending immigration cases, 1.6 million are for asylum seekers waiting on formal hearings or case decisions.
By the numbers: Immigration courts closed 900,000 cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
- That's the most cleared cases in a fiscal year, and 235,000 more than the previous year, TRAC reports.
- At that pace, immigration courts wouldn't clear all active cases until 2028, an Axios analysis of TRAC data found.
Add 11 million undocumented immigrants — who Trump said would be part of his mass deportation plan — and the backlog would go into 2040 at the current pace, according to an Axios review.
- That's not counting millions of other migrants trying to enter the U.S. in the future.
- It's also not counting the 1.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. who are either receiving or eligible for Temporary Protected Status — a designation Trump limited in his first term and has promised to revoke for Haitians in his second.
Tom Homan, just over 12 hours before he was named Trump's border czar, told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that the administration will "concentrate on the public safety threats and the national security threats first, because they're the worst of the worst. So it's going to be the worst first."
- "That's how it has to be done," Homan added. "And we know a record number of people on the terrorist watch list have crossed this border. We know a record number of terrorists have been released in this country.
- "We have already arrested some planning attacks. So, look: The president is dead on when he says criminal threats, national security threats are going to be prioritized, and that's the way it's going to be."
Between the lines: Trump and Republicans have vowed to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove immigrants quickly, which experts worry could be used to detain lawful immigrants and their U.S.-born children.
- The act signed by President John Adams as part of the "Alien and Sedition Acts," allows the detention and removal of immigrants only when there is "a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government."
Reality check: The law is inapplicable because the U.S. is not at war with anyone, Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, immigration law scholar and professor at Cornell Law School, tells Axios.
- It would also be difficult to use unless Trump declares criminal networks like the Sinaloa Cartel a foreign nation, Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, tells Axios.
- Any use of the law would be met with court challenges from immigrant advocates.
What we're watching: Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress could try to pass immigration overhaul legislation but any revamping of due process will likely face resistance from Democrats and some Republicans.
Go deeper: Why Trump's immigration crackdown could overwhelm Colorado courts
