Bulwark Takes Inside Trump’s Brutal Anti-Immigrant Agenda
Nov 30, 2025
In this discussion, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow specializing in immigration policy, sheds light on Trump's aggressive anti-immigrant stance. He reveals the surge in ICE enforcement and the troubling reality of who gets detained—many with no serious convictions. The conversation dives into the human costs of mass deportation and the devastating impact on communities. Aaron also touches on recent terminations of Temporary Protected Status, the rollback of asylum programs, and the misleading narratives around immigrant crime rates. A thought-provoking exploration of immigration's complexities!
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Interior Enforcement Is Rapidly Expanding
- ICE arrests and detention have accelerated since Trump took office, with detention capacity rising toward double the 40,000-bed baseline.
- About 40% of people in ICE detention now have no criminal record, and detentions are rising monthly.
Conviction Profiles And Inflated Deportation Claims
- Most people held by ICE with prior convictions have low-level offenses; only a small share are violent offenders.
- The administration inflates removal figures by counting non-deportation actions as deportations.
Mass Deportation Is A Multi-Decade Undertaking
- Deporting all undocumented immigrants would be a decades-long project even at accelerated rates.
- At roughly a million removals per year it would still take over a decade to reach the estimated 14–15 million undocumented.