Unfortunately, the second Trump Administration has not lived up to the promises made in that July 2024 speech in Milwaukee. It has instead prioritized removing the worst criminal illegal aliens. With that population estimated at between 500,000 and 800,000 individuals, the administration has focused enforcement resources on a small subset of illegals, prioritizing quality over quantity. But this is a misguided attempt to assuage the concerns of a radical—but sizable—segment of Americans who do not believe in borders or in sovereignty.
The American public has witnessed widespread obstruction of immigration enforcement, record violence targeting ICE agents, and significant resistance by state and local governments in Democratic strongholds. Democratic Party elected officials and their left-wing base are very clear that the tolerable number of deportations is zero. They were never going to support anything resembling a mass deportation operation.
But what about the tens of millions of Americans who do support President Trump’s promised deportation agenda?
The administration’s prioritization of the “worst first” has unintentionally created a de facto enforcement amnesty for aliens unlawfully present in the United States who have not committed a subsequent crime. DHS data indicate that in 2025, ICE deported fewer than 350,000 illegal aliens. This is not the mass deportation agenda the American people voted for.
President Trump deserves credit for securing the southwest border and all but stopping the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. But much more needs to be done on interior enforcement to effectuate an actual mass deportation agenda that the president promised on the campaign trail.
Enter the Mass Deportation Coalition. This coalition was organized in February 2026 in response to political, operational, legal, and physical attacks on deportation operations. Our purpose is to support President Trump’s signature campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. The Mass Deportation Coalition is composed of immigration law and policy experts (including those affiliated with The Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life), former senior and rank-and-file law enforcement officials, advocates, and supporters of immigration enforcement. We are growing and regularly adding new members to the coalition.
Last week, the Coalition published its Playbook, a comprehensive menu of policy, operational, and logistical options that would allow the Trump Administration to carry out a minimum of 1,000,000 deportations in 2026 so that all illegal aliens can be deported in the years to come.
We are united around five key principles:
1) Moving from the Phase I “worst of the worst” interior enforcement prioritization to Phase II mass deportations, with a focus on populations that are easier to remove, such as deportable aliens with final orders of removal and visa overstays.
2) Significantly ramping up worksite enforcement.
3) Utilizing a whole-of-government approach (including tax and banking tools) to leverage existing authorities in multiple federal agencies to increase the number of removals and self-deportations.
4) Providing the American public with complete data transparency on immigration numbers.
5) Coming to a shared understanding of what counts as a deportation.
The Playbook makes policy and operational suggestions based on the assumption that Congress will not change U.S. immigration laws. For decades, Congress has been unable—or unwilling—to pass meaningful legislation to address the immigration crisis in America, and it would be dishonest to assume it could do so in today’s political climate.
The Coalition’s Playbook is drawn from combined decades of experience in federal law enforcement, military logistics, government contracting, and large-scale transportation operations. We recognize that carrying out a true mass deportation operation requires immense resources to screen millions of cases, locate and apprehend individuals, detain them, and transport aliens out of the country within the timeframe this campaign demands.
The centerpiece for accomplishing this goal is an aggressive worksite enforcement campaign. President Trump frequently cites the successful interior enforcement operations of the Eisenhower Administration as a model for his mass deportation agenda. That administration aggressively targeted worksites that employed illegal aliens, ultimately removing a sizable percentage of illegals then living in the United States.
Conservative estimates suggest there are between 10.8 and 11.1 million illegal aliens currently working in the United States—which demonstrates the lax nature of worksite enforcement. For decades, ICE worksite arrests of illegals have been in the hundreds or low thousands of individuals annually. Historically, worksite operations have produced arrests that were not followed by timely deportation, undermining both deterrence and public confidence.
Ramping up worksite enforcement would accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. First, it would curtail the main incentive to illegal immigration by foreclosing economic opportunity for illegal aliens. Second, robust worksite enforcement accompanied by an aggressive employer sanctions program would send a message to employers who employ illegal labor that there are significant consequences for violating the law. Finally, since it is well known which industries employ illegal labor, worksite enforcement is an operationally low-risk use of resources, likely leading to a high number of interior removals.
Other Playbook recommendations include significantly expanding immigration detention, reforming and streamlining asylum cases, debanking illegal aliens, modernizing and standardizing data collection, and aggressively prosecuting lawbreaking and fighting back against left-wing lawfare. These represent a whole-of-government approach that uses the vast, but not unlimited, resources of the federal government to fulfill President Trump’s core campaign promise.
Mass deportations and major elements of the Playbook are immensely popular with the American people. Members of the Coalition commissioned a poll of likely voters and found widespread support (66%) for deporting migrants who enter the country illegally. It also found overwhelming support—north of 70%—for the idea that the United States has an obligation to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress. A similar number of Americans support aggressive immigration operational tools, including enhanced worksite enforcement, penalizing employers that hire illegal labor, the widespread use of E-Verify, and regular audits of businesses that knowingly employ illegal labor.
As we approach our country’s 250th birthday, the central question for American citizens is whether they want to preserve America for Americans, with fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law. Decades of mass illegal migration have upended labor markets, caused cultural and civil fragmentation, overwhelmed local schools and hospitals, and brought crime and disorder to American communities.
President Trump promised mass deportations to the American people. The Mass Deportation Coalition Playbook provides the roadmap for the Trump Administration to fulfill its core campaign promise and provide the policy framework needed to remove illegal aliens from the United States.
Kyle Brosnan is the general counsel of the Oversight Project and a 2025 Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow. The Oversight Project is a member of the Mass Deportation Coalition.
https://americanmind.org/memo/a-playbook-for-mass-deportations/
