This article, authored by Jason Hopkins is republished under the Creative Commons “CC BY-NC-ND” license with permission from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
As the Trump administration appears to shift its sweeping mass deportation agenda, rattled immigration hardliners warn the move could become a midterm liability.
Major conservative groups are pushing President Donald Trump to make 2026 the year he shifts his mass deportation agenda into overdrive. However, the calls come at a time when the administration — reeling from two deadly shootings in Minneapolis and tanking public support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — is seemingly backing down from a wider deportation policy that targets all illegal immigrants, not just criminals.
With a razor-thin 217-214 GOP majority in the House of Representatives, the stakes for the president’s agenda are high as midterm elections loom. Just a few House elections will decide whether Democrats can regain control of key committees, block major bills and become a general obstacle to the president’s legislative priorities.
“President Trump secured a second term in the White House largely on the promise to enforce the entirety of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as written by Congress,” Matt O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Those of us who value national sovereignty and the rule of law are now concerned that Team Trump is going to revert to the same lazy, selective enforcement policies relied on by past presidents.”
Trump shook up the status quo when he first ran for president in 2016 on a campaign theme that revolved around an unprecedented increase in immigration enforcement. Running for a third time in 2024 in the wake of then-President Joe Biden’s border crisis, he heavily championed the concept of mass deportations.
“Americans voted for a change and millions of inadmissible aliens entered during Biden’s four years,” Lora Ries, a senior immigration policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “So just focusing on worst of the worst criminal aliens, that gets you hundreds of thousands, but it doesn’t get you millions, and we need millions deported.”
The president did buckle down on immigration enforcement during his first year back in office, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) touting roughly 675,000 deportations and 95% fewer border encounters throughout 2025 compared to the prior administration. Even these numbers, however, have been criticized by more hardline staffers within the administration who say raw deportation numbers — the forced repatriation of illegal migrants with final deportation orders — is much lower.
The White House is denying that there’s been any official change in enforcement policy.
“Nobody is changing the Administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities.”
DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
A ‘Course Correction’
FAIR, Heritage and a slate of other conservative organizations teamed up in February to launch the Mass Deportation Coalition, a group dedicated to pressuring the White House to increase deportations by leaps and bounds. The advocacy group says it’s releasing a blueprint on how to achieve one million repatriations by the end of 2026 — and wants to show these plans to the president himself.
However, these calls are coming at a time when Trump, top White House officials and congressional allies are strongly signaling a refined deportation strategy that focuses more exclusively on illegal aliens with serious criminal histories.
During a press conference in late January, the president seemingly urged his team to “lighten up” on enforcement and expressed sympathy for those who came here unlawfully, but are otherwise working without issue on farms or hotels, with the president adding that “we’re looking to get the criminals out right now.” On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the GOP faced a “hiccup” with Hispanic voters due to perceived overzealous immigration enforcement, but said a “course correction” was incoming with the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Earlier in March, the president declared that Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin would be taking Noem’s place by the end of March. While a staunch Trump ally who supports hawkish border policies, it’s not clear yet where he stands on the current shift in messaging. A Mullin spokeswoman referred the DCNF back to the White House when asked about mass deportations.
Surveys in recent shows an incredible decline in support for immigration enforcement, with more Americans than ever before voicing approval for abolishing ICE altogether.
Trump re-entered the White House with a strong mandate on immigration policy, with voters overwhelmingly viewing him as the better candidate to handle immigration over then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. However, his standing on the issue has since fallen, where public approval on his handling on immigration has sunk to the lowest level since his return, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released in mid-February.
“After four years in which millions and millions of illegal aliens poured across our borders totally unfettered and unchecked, we now have the strongest and most secure border in American history, by far,” Trump said in his February State of the Union address. “In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States, but we will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.”
Despite public denials from the White House, senior administration officials have stated they’ve noticed conspicuous changes in enforcement in recent weeks. One administration staffer — speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters — told the DCNF that ICE agents are increasingly ignoring notifications to pick up illegal migrants.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair privately encouraged House Republicans earlier in March to quit hailing “mass deportations” and instead shift messaging to the removal of violent illegal migrants, according to Axios. Blair reiterated as much in a social media post.
‘Turn Out Trump’s Base’
Issues surrounding DHS leadership and direction began in earnest amid Operation Metro Surge, a joint ICE and Border Patrol mission in Minnesota where scuffles with anti-law enforcement agitators led to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. The killing of two Americans at the hands of federal agents led to incredible public backlash and gave Democrats an opening to block DHS funding unless key reforms were made, with key agencies in the department still suffering from a lack of money.
The aftermath not only sparked the swift departure of Tricia McLaughlin, the top DHS spokeswoman, but also resulted in Trump booting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a decision he made after two days of bipartisan grilling before congressional committees.
Border hawks are warning that a shift away from mass deportations could actually backfire for the president, as his support base may not feel energized to go to the polls come November.
“With Trump not on the ballot, they have to turn out Trump’s base and mass deportations is something that we found through our polling, turns out Trump’s base,” Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project (IAP), told the DCNF. “So we’re hoping that with the Trump administration, it is just a messaging thing, and when it comes to policy that they’re going to continue to move forward with mass deportations.”
The IAP, another founding partner of the Mass Deportation Coalition, released polling on Thursday that indicates many GOP voters could stay home if the administration gives up on its core campaign promise, with the group finding that 74% of Trump voters are “more likely” to vote in the upcoming midterms if the president exceeds one million deportations in 2026.
The poll notably found even higher numbers for Hispanic Trump voters, with over 75% of Hispanic respondents saying they would also “more likely” vote for Republican candidates in November if Trump undergoes mass deportation efforts.
“So we found that actually, this particular issue that they seem to be running away from, is something that motivates his base and could end up backfiring on them,” Chmielenski said.
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