Trump won’t be able to deport 12 million immigrants — not even close

Andres Oppenheimer

President-elect Donald said in his first post-election TV interview that he will deport everyone who is illegally in the United States, which would amount to more than 12 million people. But mark my words: that will not happen.

There are practical, legal and economic reasons why Trump won’t be able to come even close to deporting the millions of people he has promised. Nevertheless, he is likely to continue using his inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric as a rallying cry to keep his supporters fired up during his four years in office.

In his interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump was asked by interviewer Kristen Welker, “Is it your plan to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years?” The president-elect’s answer was, “Well, I think you have to do it.”

Trump added that he will start by deporting immigrants with criminal records, but doubled down on his promise to deport anyone without legal immigration documents. That will also include legal residents or citizens who don’t want to be separated from their undocumented relatives, he said.

Trump’s designated border czar Tom Homan claimed there are 1.5 million immigrants with criminal records, although official U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency data say the number is closer to 660,000.

Most immigration experts say Trump may be able to marginally increase the average number of deportations in recent years, but nowhere near the more than 12 million he’s promising.

To put the numbers in perspective, Trump deported 1.5 million immigrants during his four years in office. President Biden is expected to end his term having deported a similar number of people, not counting expulsions during the pandemic era under a now-defunct Title 42 emergency order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Most immigration experts are skeptical that these numbers will skyrocket during Trump’s second term.

Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told me that “We’re likely to see an increase in deportations, but nowhere near the many millions that president elect has talked about.” Selee estimated that there may be “a few hundred thousand more deportations, but not millions.”

Among the reasons Trump is unlikely to be able to expel all undocumented immigrants:

First, if the past is any indication, Trump’s campaign promises should be taken with a grain of salt. Trump started his first presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, promising that he would build a wall along the 2,000 mile border, and that “I will have Mexico pay for that wall.” But neither of these two promises materialized during his presidency.

Trump only built 3 new miles of border wall — the rest was repairing existing structures — and Mexico never paid a cent for them, according to the fact-checking site Politifact.

Second, deporting more than 12 million undocumented people would be incredibly expensive. According to an American Immigration Council study, it would cost at least $315 billion, “and that would be a highly conservative estimate.”

The figure doesn’t even take into account the cost of building mega-prisons for more than 12 million potential deportees. To put the problem in perspective, the current prison population in the United States, including federal and local jails, is 1.9 million, the Council said.

Third, deporting all undocumented immigrants would have a huge economic cost in the United States, because much of the construction, agriculture and hospitality industries rely on undocumented workers.

If they are expelled from the country, labor costs would go up, and everything from groceries to housing would become more expensive. The removal of all undocumented construction, agriculture and hospitality workers from the country could reduce the U.S. gross domestic product by $1.7 trillion, according to the Council study.

Fourth, there would be huge legal hurdles to deport all undocumented immigrants because the Constitution guarantees due process to all individuals living in the country, including undocumented immigrants. This means that each case must be heard in court, which can sometimes take years. There is a backlog of 3.7 million pending immigration cases.

Last, but not least, public sentiment on immigration may veer against Trump’s draconian measures.

Growing numbers of Americans will realize that Trump’s claim that there is an “invasion” of undocumented migrants is misleading. There was, indeed, an increase in the influx of unauthorized migrants in 2022 and 2023, but the numbers fell by 60% in 2024, according to ICE figures.

Trump has conveniently failed to mention that his bogus “invasion” no longer exists. And he has failed to mention the many studies showing that undocumented migrants on average commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born Americans.

My biggest fear is that Trump, who has said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” will use unauthorized immigrants as political fodder to energize his base. The net result of his “largest deportation” plan will probably be hurting the U.S. economy and helping normalize racial hatred.