Under the Trump-Miller mass deportation machine, ICE and CBP are conducting raids, detentions, and deportations through aggressive enforcement, ignoring court orders, and denying due process. And as Americans struggle with the rapidly rising cost of living, Congress is preparing to hand them a blank check – paving the way to allocate over $70 billion to ICE and CBP with no guardrails and no reforms, on top of the 170 billion already allocated last year. With this additional funding, expect more of the same: an out-of-control mass deportation machine that makes us less safe, poorer, and weaker.
Here’s what the record shows:
Operating Outside the Law: How the Trump-Miller Deportation Machine Evades Accountability
They’re ignoring the rule of law: defying court orders, denying due process, and violating constitutional rights:
- In its first 15 months, the Trump administration violated court orders in at least 31 lawsuits involving deportations, spending cuts, and immigration practices. More than 250 instances of noncompliance stem from individual immigration cases, including holding immigrants well past their court-ordered release dates.
- A federal judge ruled ICE wrongly arrested California resident Darwin Ortega Montufar, who had no criminal record and fully complied when agents picked him up on his way to work, and ordered his release. The administration ignored the order and kept him detained anyway.
- In Houston, a 10-year-old child appeared alone in immigration court without counsel after his mother was detained. The Trump administration has radically expedited children’s deportation hearings, making it impossible for children as young as 4 to secure legal representation.
- Miami police have transformed into a show-me-your-papers patrol, conducting warrantless stops despite public opposition. The Supreme Court last year approved immigration stops based on race, accent, and appearance – clearing the way for this to become standard practice nationwide.
- ICE Border Czar Tom Homan threatened New York City with a massive surge of federal agents, promising “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen before” – openly defying NYC’s laws designating hospitals, schools, and courthouses as protected from immigration enforcement.
No one is off limits, including U.S. citizens:
- In March 2025, a Homeland Security Investigations agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, during a traffic stop in Texas. Ruben’s family and the public only learned of ICE’s involvement after a public records request uncovered documents about the agency’s use of force – details that had been kept hidden for nearly a year.
- Three ICE agents showed up at a U.S.-born Chinese-American man’s door at 6 a.m., pounding until they realized they were being recorded on his doorbell camera, then left without explanation.
- In Anchorage, Alaska, ICE is pushing to deport a 12-year-old U.S. citizen, born to a Nigerian mother and a U.S. citizen father serving in the military, demanding a DNA test to prove citizenship that should never have been questioned.
- Police arrested 8 protesters outside a New York City hospital, where ICE detained someone, a location federal guidelines designated as protected from immigration enforcement.
- Leo Garcia Venegas, a natural-born U.S. citizen and construction worker in Alabama, has been detained by ICE three times since Trump took office – despite showing his REAL ID each time. During his most recent detention, officers followed him home, tackled him, and shackled him.
Inside detention, there are no rules:
- A Washington Post investigation of internal ICE records found detention staff used force 780 times in Trump’s second term, affecting 1,330 individuals, up 54% from the prior year.
- Guards pepper-sprayed detainees demanding food, water, and medical care. At least 106 were injured. One man died in a struggle with guards at a Texas tent encampment.
- ICE’s own standards prohibit the use of force except as a last resort and never as punishment. The records show guards are using it for both.
- DHS is closing the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, which investigates abuse and misconduct in the immigration detention system, even as ICE custody deaths reach an all-time high.
- In October 2025, ICE stopped paying medical providers, cutting off essential care like dialysis, prenatal treatment, oncology, and chemotherapy for over 7 months. Since then, deaths in ICE custody have spiked to 51.7 annually – more than 5 times the historical average of 8.9 deaths per year.
Wrong Priorities: The Deportation Machine Is Making the Cost-of-Living Crisis Worse
- A national NBER study found that for every six undocumented workers who lose jobs to ICE enforcement, one U.S.-born worker with a high school degree or less also loses their job. In regions with heightened ICE arrests, employment of undocumented men fell by 7,500, with the steepest losses in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.
- The Brookings Institution found no evidence that immigration undermines economic dynamism and warned that the federal immigration enforcement surge could shrink the nation’s workforce by more than 2.4 million people and slash GDP by more than 7% by 2028.
- Nearly a year after ICE raids, Latino-owned shopping centers across Southern California remain economically devastated – with non-essential sales down 10–15% and customers only making quick, fearful trips for groceries during off-hours.
- In Idaho, a regional economist found mass deportation would cut dairy output by 45%, slash agricultural production by 22.5%, and shrink the state’s gross product by more than $5.1 billion, triggering a recession on par with 2007–2010.
- In Kentucky, restaurants, construction, and agriculture would face severe workforce shortages under mass deportation. The construction industry alone employs 12,000 immigrant workers, 8% of the state’s construction workforce – a critical loss given Kentucky’s projected shortage of nearly 300,000 homes by the end of the decade.
- In Minnesota, mass deportation would devastate agriculture, food processing, and construction. Deporting all undocumented immigrants would eliminate 8,000 jobs currently held by U.S.-born workers. If Minnesota lost just 10% of the undocumented population, the state would lose $22 million annually in state and local tax revenue.
- In Washington State, undocumented workers paid nearly $1 billion in state and local taxes in 2022. Deporting 10% would cost the state $100 million per year in lost revenue, compounding an already staggering budget crisis.
- In Washington, D.C, undocumented immigrants drive the economy: they contribute $73.6 million in local taxes that fund vital programs and services. Mass deportation would eliminate this tax base and devastate the entrepreneurial engine powering DC’s economy.
Americans Are Paying the Price: The Trump-Miller deportation machine isn’t making America safer – it’s stripping away constitutional protections, driving up costs, and depleting the workforce while real threats remain unaddressed. Congress must: impose meaningful oversight, demand accountability, and make clear that no agenda supersedes the law.
