Sunday, May 10, 2026 | By DNN247
Trump White House border czar Tom Homan delivered a blunt warning to the nation at this week’s Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, and the message was unmistakable: what happened in 2025 was only the beginning. Standing before an audience of immigration officers, defense contractors, drone manufacturers, and federal prosecutors, Homan declared that 2026 would see mass deportations on a scale that would dwarf anything the country had witnessed in the modern era. ‘If you think last year’s historic number is good, wait till next year,’ he told the packed convention hall.
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus has undergone a transformation so sweeping that even veteran immigration officials describe it as unrecognizable from two years ago. The Department of Homeland Security reports that more than 675,000 illegal aliens have been deported since Trump took office in January 2025, with an estimated 2.2 million more choosing to self-deport. The White House claims that over three million undocumented immigrants have left the United States since the administration began, producing what it describes as the first negative net migration the country has seen in at least half a century.
ICE now operates with 12,000 new agents hired since January 2025, representing a 120 percent expansion in officer capacity. The agency is adding 11,000 more deportation officers, 3,500 special agents, and 2,500 attorneys to prosecute immigration court cases. On May 5 alone, the agency arrested over 1,900 people. The week prior, it deported 2,700 individuals. These are not extraordinary days. They are the new baseline.
The 287(g) program, which allows local and state law enforcement to carry out immigration enforcement tasks, has expanded from 135 agreements in 20 states when Trump took office to more than 1,400 agreements in 41 states and territories. Florida and Texas have mandated various forms of cooperation between local police and ICE, including immigration checks during routine traffic stops. Critics describe the expansion as a systemic effort to make immigrant communities feel unsafe in every corner of the country, regardless of immigration status.
The administration’s tactics have evolved. After large-scale public enforcement operations in Democratic-led cities sparked mass protests and led to the shooting deaths of two US citizens by Homeland Security officers in Minneapolis in January, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Newsmax he was deliberately trying to ‘get DHS out of the headlines.’ The social media clips of confrontational arrests, the dramatic workplace raids, the protests clashing with federal agents, all have given way to a quieter, more systematic approach. Immigration checks during traffic stops. Green card approvals drastically reduced. Deportation proceedings reinstated against individuals previously cleared by immigration judges.
The case of Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian Columbia University student, illustrates the administration’s reach. The US Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against him this week after an immigration judge who blocked earlier deportation efforts was fired by the administration. Mahdawi had been arrested during an ICE interview and held for two weeks without criminal charges, under an obscure legal provision that allows the Secretary of State to seek deportation of individuals deemed to pose ‘adverse foreign policy consequences.’ His legal team called the reinstatement an act of political retaliation disguised as immigration enforcement.
The State Department has paused immigrant visa processing for 75 countries whose nationals it says take public welfare at ‘unacceptable rates.’ Green card approvals have fallen sharply. Advocates for immigrants warn that the administration is systematically dismantling the legal immigration pathway alongside the undocumented one, creating a two-tier system where even lawful presence offers diminishing protection. ICE has almost entirely eliminated pre-deportation releases, meaning detention now almost uniformly leads to removal.
Read More: Trump’s $170 Billion Immigration Crackdown Escalates in 2026 as Deportations Surpass 2.5 Million
Public opinion on the crackdown has begun to shift. Polling at the start of 2026 showed declining support for aggressive enforcement tactics applied to all undocumented immigrants, rather than those with criminal convictions. The Minneapolis incident was a turning point. Yet Homan’s appearance at the Phoenix expo made clear the administration does not read the polls as a mandate to slow down. The recruitment pipeline for new border patrol agents is, in his words, ‘full,’ with 5,000 new agents arriving in coming months.
For the millions of immigrants still in the United States, documented or not, the message from Washington this weekend is stark. The administration that won in 2024 on a promise of mass deportations intends to keep that promise, with more resources, more legal tools, and more interagency coordination than any enforcement operation in American history. The legal battles will continue in courts across the country. But in Phoenix, the government’s message to its own enforcement community was delivered without ambiguity or apology: the work is not finished, and the pace will not slow.
