PHOENIX — Senior Trump administration officials at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix reiterated plans to intensify interior immigration enforcement and carry out what they described as mass deportations.
White House border czar Tom Homan praised Border Patrol and ICE personnel and said high numbers of arrests and removals will continue. Officials at the Expo said immigration officers arrested more than half a million undocumented immigrants last year and are currently making roughly 1,200 arrests a day. Trump campaigned on a promise of about a million deportations a year.
Homan said enforcement would scale up further as new hires come online. He warned that next year, with thousands more agents deployed, enforcement numbers will rise substantially and said, “Mass deportations are coming.” He framed the operation as delivering on campaign promises and pushed back on critics who say the administration is not moving aggressively enough.
Homan acknowledged the administration has faced criticism and a period of softer rhetoric after a January enforcement operation in Minneapolis led to the deaths of two U.S. citizens and prompted bipartisan calls to pause the crackdown, along with leadership changes at the Department of Homeland Security. Earlier this year, President Trump said he wanted “a little bit of a softer touch” and replaced Kristi Noem with former Sen. Markwayne Mullin as DHS secretary.
Polling at the start of the year showed declining public support for aggressive interior enforcement, with over half of respondents saying tactics had gone “too far,” though roughly three-quarters of Republicans still approved of ICE’s work, according to officials at the event.
Homan said the administration’s approach would prioritize people with criminal records or those deemed security threats, but added that prioritization would not automatically exclude others. “No one’s off the table,” he said, arguing that living in the country illegally is a violation regardless of length of stay.
Homan said DHS Secretary Mullin shares those views. Mullin, who has described the agency as being “more quiet” about operations, noted in interviews that enforcement activity has continued — pointing to a day in early May when the agency reported arresting nearly 1,900 people and a week in which officials said about 2,700 people were deported. “We haven’t missed a beat,” he told reporters.
Justice Department focus on denaturalizations
The Border Security Expo brings federal immigration officials together with private contractors selling drones, AI, and tactical gear; this year it included participation from the Justice and Defense departments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — the first attorney general to speak at the Expo — emphasized coordinated federal efforts to arrest and remove people without legal status and said DOJ priorities include denaturalizations and immigration court prosecutions.
Blanche highlighted cross-agency collaboration between DOJ and DHS to investigate, arrest and prosecute undocumented immigrants. He said DOJ expects to exceed the total number of denaturalization cases filed over the first four years of the Biden administration (64 cases), a remedy used to strip citizenship from those who lied on naturalization forms about criminal convictions or membership in illegal organizations. Blanche framed denaturalization actions as protecting the integrity of the naturalization process.
Targeting sanctuary jurisdictions
Homan predicted stepped-up enforcement in jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration officials, warning that those policies will lead to more collateral arrests and a greater ICE presence in neighborhoods. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said former President Trump had previously indicated he would not send a surge of ICE agents to New York without a request, and she said she was not asking for one.
Spending and hiring push
Jaclyn Rubino, the DHS official responsible for congressional funding, said the department is on track to obligate roughly 75% of the $191 billion it received from congressional Republicans last summer — funding earmarked for hiring personnel, detention and facilities, new technologies and other needs. DHS has prioritized hiring, announcing plans for 10,000 new positions at ICE and thousands more officers and agents at Customs and Border Protection.
Officials pointed to a decline in people caught crossing the U.S.–Mexico border as evidence of policy success, crediting increased arrests, detentions and deportations. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said cross-border flows dropped when ICE stepped up interior arrests and noted the recruitment pipeline is “full,” with about 5,000 new border patrol agents expected in coming months.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who is retiring at month’s end, said the agency is hiring rapidly and outlined plans that include thousands of new staff focused on prosecutions and removals: about 2,500 new attorneys for immigration court prosecutions, 11,000 deportation officers and 3,500 special agents, he said.
Rubino cautioned that while law enforcement hiring has moved quickly, recruiting for mission support roles — such as human resources, recruiters and technologists — has been more difficult, especially after recent government shutdowns that caused missed paychecks for some federal workers. Congress recently ended the longest DHS shutdown in U.S. history by funding most parts of the department, though lawmakers left out some immigration enforcement functions. Republicans are pursuing reconciliation to fund all of DHS, including ICE and CBP, for the remainder of the administration without Democratic votes.
“The mission support personnel are critical,” Rubino said, noting past hiring disruptions and uncertainty about recruitment given the risk of pay interruptions. Officials at the Expo framed their expanded hiring and funding push as necessary to sustain the administration’s stepped-up enforcement agenda.