How Deportations Work
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Days before the 2024 election, speaking to an electrified crowd at Madison Square Garden, President Trump made a promise. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. During this campaign speech, Trump railed against immigrants who come to the United States illegally, whom he described as criminals and gang members.

We will not be occupied. We will not be overrun. We will not be conquered. And just hours after his inauguration, the president signed a flurry of sweeping executive orders declaring a national emergency at the southern border, suspending refugee resettlement, ending asylum programs, and expanding the pool of people who could be deported. What?

In March, federal immigration agents also began arresting people involved with pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses. One of them was Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and green card holder. His wife, Noor Abdullah, filmed his arrest as agents who refused to give their names handcuffed him and put him in an unmarked car. Yeah, they just like handcuffed him and told him, I don't know what to do. Shh.

Abdullah told NPR it took 38 hours for her to find out where her husband had been sent. I think that's probably the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. Within weeks, masked ICE agents arrested another graduate student.

Rumesa Ozturk was studying at Tufts University on a valid visa and had co-written an op-ed criticizing the university's response to the war in Gaza. In this video provided by freelance journalist Daniel Bogoslaw, you can hear a bystander questioning the agents. You want to take those masks off?

Is this a kidnapping? Meanwhile, agents were also targeting migrants the Trump administration alleged were gang members. One man from Maryland, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was deported to a prison in El Salvador. Despite the fact that an immigration judge had already ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador because he might face torture in his home country. I think that's really chilling.

Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, says that even though the administration admits deporting him to El Salvador was a mistake, they're not taking action to bring him back to the United States. They admit that they had no legal authority to remove him. And their defense in this case is that now that we've committed this egregious violation, the court has no power to order us to do anything about it.

But now, in fact, a judge has ruled that the Trump administration must take immediate steps to return Abrego Garcia by Monday at 11.59 p.m.

Deportation in the United States usually involves a long, complicated legal process. But as Trump makes good on his campaign promises, immigrant rights advocates are worried he's steamrolling due process and First Amendment rights. Consider this. As the Trump administration expands the number and scope of deportations, what does that mean in practice? From NPR, I'm Asma Khalid.

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It's Consider This from NPR.

Deportation is a complicated process with lots of layers. We are going to try to unpack some of those layers and understand it a bit better with NPR's Ximena Bustillo. She covers immigration policy and she joins us now in this studio. Welcome to the show. Hi, Asma. So you have been reporting on immigration for the last several months and you've boiled down this deportation process into a number of different steps to help us understand how

I would say a somewhat wonky process works. So what did you find? I've identified this process down to five steps. Okay. Being identified as deportable, being arrested, going through immigration court, receiving a final order of removal, and ultimate removal. Keep in mind that process is individualized to each case and...

who, what, when, where, how someone is identified can drag on for years or be very quick. Got it. So let's start with the first step you just mentioned. What does it mean to be identified as deportable? Those at risk for arrest primarily include people with

legal status because they may have entered the country illegally, overstayed a work or student visa, or violated the terms of their green card, including by committing a crime. But the government doesn't have to prove that you committed a crime to see you as removable. A good example of this could be those without work authorization. There's about 8 million in this country. So Ximena, once someone is identified, then how does the government find them?

Homeland security investigations are expensive and time consuming, so they often rely on local law enforcement to report that they have arrested or identified someone without legal status. Then there's also what are called, quote, at large arrests. These are arrests conducted by ICE.

out in the field. Okay, so Ximena, from there you enter into a court system. And I want you to help us understand how immigration courts differ than other courts in our American legal system. So to start, they're not in the judicial branch like all other courts in our legal system. They're housed within the executive under the Department of Justice. And those arrested do not get the right to a lawyer, but they can ask to find one. And they do get the chance to make their defense.

During the setting, there's also an attorney on behalf of ICE who argues in favor of removal. And then this is where things get more complicated. Immigration courts are currently backlogged about 4 million cases and people are being arrested faster than the courts can process their cases. I have a question here, though, Heeman. I mean, it seems like this court process you are describing is not actually what we have seen unfold with some of the high profile cases that

We've been hearing about since President Trump took office. Right. So that's what a lot of immigration advocates are filing lawsuits over. They say that this court process had been completely sidestepped as people were put on planes and taken to other countries. So how do they do that, though? How can you actually just sidestep the process? The Trump administration is trying to use very specific tools.

authorities that they get access to to expedite these removals. Some has been the use of the Alien Enemies Act, which specifically allows the administration to bypass the court process, as well as something called expedited removal, which, again, allows you to expedite the removal, skipping the court process. I see. Okay, so let's get back to the process that you were describing. And I

Say you potentially get a final removal order and then you are removed. How does that actually happen? How does that work? So there are roughly three main ways that people are removed, either expedited removal, which I just explained. That also primarily happens at the border where people are basically taken back across. Then there's voluntary return, which is when someone makes their own travel arrangements. And then there's non-voluntary, which is when ICE arranges to fly you back.

But there are challenges to sending many people back to their home countries. One reason is that their home countries have not agreed to accept them back. One thing I do not specifically list is the step of detention. Some people might be detained from the point that they're arrested all the way until a court decision is made or they're put on a removal flight. There's also alternatives to detention, such as wearing an ankle monitor or having regular check-ins with the government. Okay.

So, Jimena, what you have described seems like an incredibly lengthy process, perhaps a rather costly process as well. And yet it is something that President Trump campaigned on. He promised to bring about the largest deportation in American history. So how is what he promised during the campaign accurate?

actually unfolding in these first few months? There continues to be a big focus on deportations and arrests, but there is still a resource issue. Borders are Tom Homan has been critical of Congress's slower pace in providing DHS with more money or codifying any of Trump's executive orders, especially as immigration policy does come more out of the White House instead of Congress, which is the body that makes laws and provides the funding.

All right. Well, thank you very much for your reporting. Thank you. That's NPR's Ximena Bustillo. This episode was produced by Avery Keatley, Ale Marquez-Hance, and Jeffrey Pierre. It was edited by Christopher Intaliata and Anayu Kananov. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Asma Khalid.

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