Trump's mass deportation plan hits its own wall

Zoom in: That urgency led the White House to ask Congress for an immediate infusion of $175 billion to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acquire more detention space, boost staff and address other needs.

• "At the end of the day, we've gotta just spend money," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said in a brief interview at the White House. "Unfortunately the American taxpayers are going to have to pay the bill on this."

Driving the news: ICE agents and cooperating agencies say they're arresting 600 to 1,100 people a day, according to disclosures from the White House and ICE on X.

• That would put the administration on track to arrest roughly 25,000 immigrants in Trump's first month of office — far off the reach-goal of deporting 1 million a year that Vice President Vance pitched on the campaign trail.

Since Trump took office Jan. 20, a lack of detention space has led to more than 460 arrestees being freed under the "catch and release" program, in which they agree to be monitored and return for their immigration court hearings.

• "The system generally wasn't created to deport so many people, to deport millions of people," said Adriel D. Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.
• The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Here are the biggest obstacles to Trump's mass deportation plan — a huge undertaking that will involve remaking ICE, a historically underfunded agency:

1. Detention space: Border czar Tom Homan wants to increase detention space to 100,000 beds — more than double the capacity of ICE detention units, which hold about 41,500 people a day and are nearly at capacity.

• Doubling capacity will involve private contractors, other parts of the U.S. government and local jails. Trump's team also has struck agreements with foreign governments to create more space.
• The overall strategy includes a plan to eventually hold up to 30,000 detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Officials with CoreCivic, a private prison company that runs 12 facilities with contracts to provide detention space for ICE across the U.S., said on an earnings call Tuesday it has presented the agency with a proposal to provide access to 28,000 more beds. Its leadership is in touch with Trump's team daily, the company said.

2. A new messaging problem: The White House has relished promoting its arrests and raids in the media, a strategy partly aimed at encouraging undocumented immigrants to "self-deport" — leave the U.S. on their own.

• But now Homan says all that publicity may be hindering ICE raids.

• "It's all about operational security," Homan said. "We may have to stop the media ride-alongs because — I'm not pointing the finger at them — but the less people that know about these operations, the safer it is for our agents."
• The White House hasn't released a daily arrest update since Feb. 4. It reported 815 arrests that day. Homan and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem appear frequently on cable news outlets, however.

3. Staffing: Significantly more law enforcement officers are needed to carry out the arrest and detention operations Trump wants.

• The American Immigration Council projects that to arrest 1 million people a year, ICE would need 30,000 new officers and staff. The study estimates that would cost $7 billion a year.
• ICE and the DHS investigations unit have put out a contract request to help them hire more staff.

4. Backlogged courts: The current immigration court backlog involves more than 3.5 million active cases — a total that increased significantly under the Biden administration, as waves of people tried to claim asylum at the southern border.

• People can file for asylum within a year of arriving in the U.S., even if they entered without permission.
• The immigration court system needs more judges to cut into the backlog, which at the current pace would take about four years to resolve.

5. Reluctant partners: Trump's team struck deals with Venezuela, India and El Salvador for them to accept deportation flights and repatriate its citizens.

• But many other countries are refusing to accept the return of their own citizens, including China, Cuba and Russia. They're referred to as recalcitrant countries.
• The administration can withhold visas to such countries — as Trump almost did with Colombia — but it hasn't used this leverage yet.