The Trump administration claims it is going after “the worst of the worst.” The record tells a different story. Across categories of legal status – DACA, TPS, work visas, humanitarian parole, and asylum – Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are systematically targeting and stripping people of legal protections in the largest mass-delegalization push in modern history. The goal: delegalize, then deport – with no regard for due process, the law, or the impact on our communities, our economy, or our families. Now, with over $240 billion handed to their deportation machine since last year, Trump and Miller have vastly expanded capacity to go after the millions they have stripped of legal status, and anyone else they encounter along the way.
Here’s what the record shows:
DACA Recipients Are Being Pushed Out of Status, Detained, and Deported:
- Fourteen years after DACA’s creation, the Trump administration has spent the past year targeting recipients by imposing new restrictions and slow walking renewals, pushing DACA recipients toward detention and deportation.
- DHS has admitted to jailing over 260 DACA recipients and deporting more than 80.
- The stakes are enormous: roughly 500,000 DACA recipients live in the U.S., sharing homes with more than 900,000 U.S. citizens and raising 300,000 U.S.-born children. Many of these program beneficiaries remember only the U.S. as their home.
- DACA recipients contribute nearly $17 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Ending DACA could result in $648 billion in economic losses.
- DACA recipients also fill critical nursing and healthcare roles in communities across the country, helping address a national shortage.
One Million TPS Holders Are at Risk of Losing Their Legal Status:
- The Trump administration has ended or attempted to end TPS designations for 13 of 17 countries with active TPS designation since Trump took office, threatening over one million TPS holders.
- Terminations already in effect have impacted nearly 320,000 people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Terminations for Yemen and remaining Venezuelan holders could affect 350,000 more.
- If ongoing court challenges fail, terminations for Burma, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria could strip an additional 330,000 of their status.
- Over 550,000 TPS recipients who were legally working lost legal status by the end of 2025. TPS recipients contribute over $36 billion in annual GDP.
The Asylum System Has Been Gutted and the Refugee Program Dismantled:
- The administration set the refugee admissions ceiling at just 7,500 for FY2026, the lowest in the 45-year history of the refugee program, while suspending the U.S. refugee resettlement program entirely.
- Meanwhile, of the 6,069 refugees admitted between October 2025 and April 2026, 99% were white South African as thousands of refugees from other countries who had already been approved are stuck in limbo. Now the administration is proposing to raise the refugee cap from 7,500 to 17,500 – reserving all 10,000 additional spots for Afrikaners.
- In December 2025, the administration paused decisions on many asylum cases, cutting off a critical protection pathway for people who entered the U.S. legally at ports of entry.
- Of the 4.5 million people currently seeking asylum in the U.S., roughly 3 million adults are already working and contributing, filling essential roles in industries grappling with widespread labor shortages.
Humanitarian Parole Has Been Revoked for Half a Million People:
- The Trump administration moved to revoke humanitarian parole and work authorization for more than 500,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) who entered the U.S. legally under the CHNV parole program.
The bottom line: From Dreamers to TPS holders and asylum seekers – no legal status is safe under Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. This is a deliberate, coordinated campaign to strip as many people as possible of their legal standing and maximize deportations at any cost.
