Poll: Fla. Police Help with Immigration Crackdown; Should This Continue?

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced it would attempt to shame state and local authorities that aren’t cooperating with its mass-deportation effort, a campaign it described as still “in the beginning stages,” even as the White House celebrates its ceremonial 100th day in office.

Under a new executive order being signed Monday, President Donald Trump is ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to publish a list of state and local governments that they see as obstructing federal immigration enforcement.

It’s the latest incremental escalation of Trump’s aggressive second-term immigration crackdown that has put him in a sustained clash with the federal judiciary over the role of due process for migrants being sent out of the country.

At a press briefing Monday, administration officials used numbers to bolster their unquestionably successful campaign of stemming the flow of migrants at the Mexican border.

Border czar Tom Homan noted that during much of the Biden administration, crossings at the southern border averaged between 11,000 and 15,000 each day.

“You know what the number was the last 24 hours? One-hundred-seventy-eight,” Homan said. “Fifteen thousand to 178. Unprecedented.”

In another stark contrast with the Biden administration, Homan said just nine undocumented immigrants have been released into the U.S. during Trump’s opening months in office. Last year, that number was 184,000.

Blasting the former president’s border record, Homan asserted, “Biden unsecured it on purpose.” He estimated there are at least 20 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., with 700,000 facing criminal charges.

Earlier this month, Noem said “20 to 21 million people ... need to go home,” but deportations have proven harder to facilitate due to legal challenges and scant resources.

Homan put the number of total deportations at 139,000, when asked by a reporter during Monday’s White House briefing. He characterized the deportation pace as “good” but lamented media coverage claiming Biden deported at a faster clip.

“We don’t have 10.5 million people crossing the border. We don’t have border removals,” he said. “So Joe Biden could’ve deported 5% of his encounters and the numbers will still be higher than us on border removal, because we’ve got a secure border.”