Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele are undeniable allies. Beyond sending several hundred Venezuelan migrants — accused with scant evidence of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang — to Bukele’s maximum-security prison, Trump sees a reflection of himself in the Salvadoran leader’s authoritarian approach as he unleashes his machinery to fulfill a promise of the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. In both El Salvador and now the United States, respect for rights takes a back seat when it’s time to show “results.”
Trump had only been back in the White House for three days when the first report of an irregular detention came to light. On the afternoon of January 23, during a raid on a fish market in Newark, New Jersey, immigration agents arrested a Latino U.S. citizen on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant. Officers reportedly did not believe the validity of his military veteran ID. The man was quickly released, but in the months since, cases of illegal or irregular detentions and deportations have multiplied, making headlines and escalating in the courts.
On the campaign trail, Trump claimed he would deport up to 20 million people — even though the official number of undocumented immigrants in the country is around 11 million. Once in power, although the number of irregular crossings have dropped, the message remains largely the same.
After a few weeks in which arrest and deportation numbers failed to meet the White House’s expectations, Trump and his administration officials have begun to speak almost obsessively of deporting one million people in a single year, according to multiple reports. The pressure to meet that goal has resulted in a daily detention quota.
According to The Washington Post, every local office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been ordered to carry out 75 arrests per day, and local directors are being held directly responsible if targets are not met. Nationally, this translates to around 1,500 arrests daily.
