Trump’s Acting ICE Director: Mass Deportations Should Be “Like (Amazon) Prime, But With Human Beings”

Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC – A States Newsroom article, “ICE director envisions Amazon-like mass deportation system: ‘Prime, but with human beings’,” recaps speeches from the “2025 Border Security Expo” held in Phoenix and featuring several Trump administration immigration leaders, including Trump’s Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons:

“The leader of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that his dream for the agency is squads of trucks rounding up immigrants for deportation the same way that Amazon trucks crisscross American cities delivering packages. ‘We need to get better at treating this like a business,’ Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said, explaining he wants to see a deportation process “like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.'”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Human beings aren’t products to be wrapped, packaged, and shipped to fulfill an order. Yet the acting leader of ICE believes that is the ‘dream’ way for ICE to fulfill Trump’s order of mass deportation. Todd Lyons is the one who needs to be sent packing – and his comments encapsulate so much about this administration and their cruel and costly mass deportation agenda and worldview. Human beings, regardless of immigration status, aren’t Amazon packages. We’ve experienced the violence that accompanies the dehumanization of immigrants, and we know the danger within this sentiment and line of thinking. As the administration turbocharges its mass deportation agenda, they are viewing any immigrant without status as a target to toss aside and ship out of the country. Immigrants are hardworking taxpayers, dedicated parents, and dependable co-workers; they are community members, Dreamers, TPS holders and caregivers; they have dreams and due process rights and basic dignities that this administration refuses to acknowledge. America is a nation of immigrants who have always enriched and strengthened this nation.”

In addition to the dehumanizing language, this administration continues to make clear that any immigrant without legal status is “criminal” to be deported (despite unauthorized status being a civil, not criminal, violation). In addition to President Trump himself, the White House press secretary and Tom Homan, each of whom has regurgitated this view, the head of CBP’s El Centro California border sector, Gregory Bovino, reiterated the point in an interview with CalMatters. Upon questioning that highlighted that 77 of 78 immigrants recently arrested by Border Patrol in Kern County had no criminal record, Bovino said, “‘Every single one of the 78 that we arrested were criminals. Eight U.S.C. 1325 – illegal entry into the United States,’ he said, citing federal code for what is a misdemeanor offense … ‘If you’re an illegal alien, you’re getting it. A fentanyl dealer, you get it … It’s game on – anywhere.'”