On June 20, 2025, the White House published an article touting its mass deportation policy as a success in removing “…scores of dangerous criminal illegal immigrants” from the United States. In the article, the administration argues that it has focused its mass deportation efforts on individuals with violent, criminal convictions who have gained illegal entry to the U.S.
Yet, while the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy appears to be narrowly motivated by the anti-immigrant pillar of the “Make America Great Again” movement’s agenda, this policy is actually the first stage in a broader effort to reduce civil liberties for all Americans. The Trump administration’s deportation efforts are less about immigration than they are about setting the stage for America’s descent into authoritarianism.
The Trump administration’s deportation policy, far from functioning as a mechanism to remove violent criminals who have illegally entered the U.S., has instead been utilized as a weapon to attack immigrants regardless of their criminal history and legal status. For example, the Cato Institute published an article containing data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which shows that “…the government is primarily detaining individuals with no criminal convictions of any kind.”
The administration has also cracked down on documented immigrants, such as a two-year-old U.S. citizen, referred to in court filings with the initials VML. In VML’s case, a federal judge has said it is their “strong suspicion that the government…deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” VML is not the only U.S. citizen deported by the administration. According to Laura Barron-Lopez, a White House correspondent for PBS News, “there have been at least seven U.S. citizen children” deported.
Some individuals may see the Trump administration’s deportation campaign as part of an effort to fulfill a campaign promise. I would remind them that Trump campaigned on a promise to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. For example, during a rally in Madison Square Garden, Trump said, “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.” Trump has not delivered on his promise to “get the criminals out,” but he has instead focused his efforts on attacking the immigrant community as a whole, deporting those without criminal convictions and those with legal status.
The Trump administration has launched such attacks on the immigrant community not as part of Trump’s campaign promise, but as part of its plan to test the boundaries of the American public. This administration is exploring whether its attacks on immigrants will be permitted by the American public, not simply out of cultish devotion to the MAGA movement’s anti-immigrant ideology, but instead out of its own ambitions to set the stage for America’s descent into authoritarianism.
The Trump administration’s mass deportation policy is the first stage in an attempt to create broad acceptance among the American public of the elimination of their rights. For example, United States District Judge James Boasberg found that the 137 Venezuelan men the Trump administration deported to El Salvador on March 15 under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act had been deprived of their due process rights, specifically their rights to challenge their detention.
The right to due process is enshrined in the United States Constitution. The 5th and 14th Amendments protect “any person” against being deprived by the United States government of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This means that all individuals in the United States are entitled to due process rights, regardless of their legal status. It is no surprise that the Trump administration has disrespected this constitutional right, considering Trump himself has said, in a television interview with NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, “I don’t know” when he was asked if he must uphold the Constitution as president.
Trump himself has exhibited behaviors in his second term more suited for a ruler of an authoritarian regime than an American president. For example, Trump has responded to the nonviolent protests in Los Angeles against ICE raids by ordering the deployment of an estimated 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the city, despite California Governor Gavin Newsom’s objections. In the United States, it is “rare for a president to act without a governor’s cooperation or request.” This was an example of Trump acting like an authoritarian as he took actions regardless of whether they adhered to our democratic norms.
Furthermore, Trump’s deployment of National Guard Marines to L.A. in response to nonviolent protests against his own administration’s authoritarian attacks on immigrants illustrates both his antipathy towards the kind of political dissent protected by the 1st Amendment, as well as his dedication to upholding his administration’s authoritarianism as part of a goal to topple our democracy.
The Trump administration further demonstrated its commitment to expanding its authoritarian rule from the immigrant community to the entire nation with its takeover of Washington, D.C. In August, Trump took control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed D.C.’s National Guard after a former DOGE staffer working as a special government employee with the Social Security Administration was injured in an attempted carjacking. Trump has declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, even as city data shows that violent crime is at a 30-year low.
The 1973 Home Rule Act gives the president command of D.C.’s National Guard, and it allows for the president’s use of local police for federal purposes during emergencies, but only for up to 30 days without authorization from Congress. No other president has taken control of the Metropolitan Police Department since the passage of the Home Rule Act. The Trump administration’s takeover of Washington, D.C., taken together with its response to the protests in Los Angeles, should be seen as part of an alarming pattern of exercising and attempting to normalize military rule over American cities.
If Americans hope to stop the Trump administration from eviscerating our democracy, they must first signal widespread resistance to the administration’s mass deportation policy. I do not mean to suggest that there has been no such resistance. Indeed, there have been significant instances of resistance, including protests against ICE raids, which began in Los Angeles in early June and spread throughout the country, as well as nationwide “No Kings” demonstrations against Trump in June and October, in which immigrant rights were one of multiple policy concerns that motivated demonstrators.
I also do not mean to diminish the value of those instances. On the contrary, those instances are striking examples of resistance that should serve as sources of hope and inspiration during a time in which Harvard professor Steven Levitsky has argued that the U.S. is “ceasing to be a democracy.” They are powerful signals to the Trump administration that the American public will not stand for its authoritarianism against immigrants, and in turn, against anyone on U.S. soil.
Though these acts of resistance are invaluable to the fight against Trump’s attacks on immigrants, there should be more. The protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles that spread throughout the country, and the two waves of the “No Kings” demonstrations, though necessary to that fight, will not be sufficient to convey the message to the Trump administration that the American public rejects authoritarianism in the United States. The current level of nationwide resistance against Trump’s mass deportation policy is too low to send that message, which is exactly what the Trump administration is counting on.
If Americans do not increase the level of nationwide resistance to the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy, they risk losing democracy. The fact that immigrants, a group that Trump has already constructed as a scapegoat with his rhetoric, are currently the individuals having their rights attacked by the Trump administration does not preclude the possibility that eventually all individuals in the United States will face the same treatment.
Take, for example, the administration’s actions of denying immigrants their due process rights. Ilya Somin, a constitutional law professor at George Mason University, told Al Jazeera that “If there is no due process, then the government can simply deport people or punish them at will as individuals would not be able to show that they are United States citizens if they do not have due process rights.”
Targeting a scapegoated population before targeting the general public allows for a decline in the rights of all individuals, as the broader public will perceive authoritarian attacks on the scapegoat as something that happens to “other people.” If the broader public sees itself as removed from these attacks, then it will be less likely to resist. Lack of resistance will be interpreted by those in power as a warrant for the broader exercise of authoritarianism.
At this moment in American history, the public cannot afford to believe that just because someone else is being denied their constitutional rights, it will not happen to them. They should remember pastor Martin Niemöller’s warning against staying silent in the face of oppression: “Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me.”
