U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new ‍funding, including by raiding more workplaces — even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Mr. Trump has already surged immigration agents into major U.S. cities, where they swept through neighborhoods ​and clashed with residents.

While federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and ‌other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status.

ICE and Border Patrol will get $170 billion in ​additional funds through September 2029 — a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about $19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July. Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centres, pick up more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status.

The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Miami, one of the cities most affected by Mr. Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the President.

Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration ​tactics. “People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a ⁠violation of due process and militarising neighborhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist. “There is no question that is a problem for the President and Republicans.”

Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50% in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major U.S. cities, to 41% in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue. Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents ​using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and ⁠detaining U.S. citizens.

‘Numbers will explode’

In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Mr. Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the President promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year — a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Mr. Trump took office in January.

White House border czar Tom Homan ‌told Reuters that Mr. Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. ‌Mr. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.

“I think you’re going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Mr. Homan said.

Mr. Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at ‍workplaces.

Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said U.S. businesses have been reluctant to push back on Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.

Ms. Pierce said it will be interesting to see “whether or not businesses finally stand ‍up to this administration”.

Mr. Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to U.S. cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.

Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some U.S. citizens started carrying passports.

Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Mr. Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.

Some 41% of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Mr. Trump took office, ⁠just 6% of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted.

The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of U.S. citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from ​certain countries out of their naturalisation ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.

Plans to target employers

The administration’s planned focus on ⁠job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the U.S. economy and Republican-leaning business owners.

Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labour costs, undermining Mr. Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Mr. Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.

Some immigration hardliners have called for more workplace enforcement.

“Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Centre for ⁠Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”

Published – December 21, 2025 06:40 pm IST

Washington DC:

US President Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk a video posted by the White House showing immigrants in shackles being prepared to board a deportation flight from Seattle. The footage shared by the White House on social media showed illegal immigrants being put in cuffs and shackles while being prepared to board a deportation flight.

It showed the law enforcement officials lifting heavy chains attached to handcuffs and shackles chains from a basket and arranged on the airport tarmac alongside four additional sets of restraints before they were put on the migrants as they boarded the plane.

The White House labelled the footage as an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) video. ASMR refers to a tingly feeling some people experience when watching videos featuring unusual sounds, like whispering or fingernails tapping on a surface.

The video was later reposted by Elon Musk on his X handle with the caption “Haha wow”.

Haha wow https://t.co/PXFXpiGU0U

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2025

The post caught further flak from netizens who dubbed Musk’s reaction as “disgusting” and “dehumanising.”

“This is disgusting. The fact that you think this is funny speaks volumes,” commented an X user on Musk’s post. 

“You are pathetic, @elonmusk. A small man who laughs at a video of undocumented immigrants in shackles boarding a plan for being deported,” wrote another.

Another X user pointed out that the treatment of deportees by the US government was not just sad but also “dehumanising”.

US President Donald Trump has launched a massive crackdown on immigration, with illegal migrants, including Indians, being deported to their homelands. Thousands of undocumented immigrants have already been sent back, including those from Guatemala, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China among other countries.

However, questions have been raised over the treatment mated to these deported immigrants as they are being hackled and handcuffed on their way back home. 

When faced with difficulty directly deporting some migrants to their homelands, the US is also using Panama as a “stopover”, with Costa Rica expected to receive a similar flight of third-country deportees later today (February 19).

Days after singer-actor Selena Gomez was seen crying in a video over the Trump administration’s mass deportations, the White House on Saturday shared a clip featuring three women whose children were allegedly “murdered by illegal aliens”, a term used for undocumented immigrants.

“You don’t know who you’re crying for. What about our children who were brutally murdered, and raped and beaten to death and left on the floor by these illegal immigrants?,” Tammy Nobles, the mother of Kayla Hamilton who was reportedly killed by an El Salvadoran national in 2021, said in the video posted on White House’s official X handle.

“You didn’t cry for our daughters,” she added.

“Kayla Hamilton, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin were murdered by illegal aliens. Their courageous mothers had something to say to Selena Gomez and those who oppose securing our borders,” the White House said in the caption.

Kayla Hamilton, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin were murdered by illegal aliens.

Their courageous mothers had something to say to @SelenaGomez and those who oppose securing our borders. Watch pic.twitter.com/KfsqQGwhqj

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 31, 2025

In a now-deleted Instagram video, Ms Gomez, whose father is Mexican, described the arrests of illegal immigrants as an attack on “all my people”.

“All my people are getting attacked, the children. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry, I wish I could do something but I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise,” she said as she broke down in tears in the video posted on January 27.

The caption on her video read, “I’m sorry,” and included a Mexican flag emoji. She, however, deleted the clip after backlash.

ALSO READ | Donald Trump Says Will Use Guantanamo Bay To Detain 30,000 Illegal Migrants

Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was killed last year, said it was “hard to believe” Ms Gomez in the video as “she’s an actress”.

“Seeing that video, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually genuine and real because she’s an actress. My daughter was a child. There are many other children whose lives were taken due to people who cross here illegally,” she said.

Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was reportedly killed in 2023, said Ms Gomez’s video was “just a ruse to deceive people and to garner sympathy for lawlessness”.

The three women also thanked Donald Trump for action against illegal immigration within days of taking office on January 20 and said he is “making things happen”.

“President Trump genuinely cares for the American people and the American family,” Ms Morin said, as she vowed to stand by him to “make America safer again”.

X Users Slam White House For Selena Gomez Video

The White House, however, was slammed for the video, with several X users saying it was “inciting anger towards” Selena Gomez.

“This is disgusting – the WH official account is here shaming and inciting anger towards an individual American. Forget the politics here – if you think it’s okay for the WH to attack a citizen like this you’re in for a rude awakening when the dictator comes at you,” a user said.

“This is so grossly inappropriate and weird putting a target on Selena’s back by using the White House to personally attack a private citizen. I hope she sues y’all,” wrote another.

Many users also said the White House’s video was “very inappropriate and unprofessional”.

Earlier this week, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, also reacted to Selena Gomez’s video and dismissed the criticism of raids carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“I don’t think we arrested any families. We’ve arrested public safety threats and national security threats,” he said.

“No apologies. We’re moving forward to make our communities safer,” Mr Homan concluded, citing the potential reduction in fentanyl deaths, “illegal alien” crimes, and human trafficking as outcomes of stricter border enforcement.

U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. authorities arrested 538 migrants and deported hundreds in a mass operation just days into President Donald Trump’s second administration, his press secretary said late Thursday.

“The Trump Administration arrested 538 illegal immigrant criminals,” Karoline Leavitt said in a post on social platform X, adding “hundreds” were deported by military aircraft.

“The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway. Promises made. Promises kept,” she said.

Mr. Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States.

On Thursday Newark city Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “raided a local establishment… detaining undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant”.

The Mayor said one of those detained during the raid was a U.S. military veteran, “this egregious act is in plain violation” of the U.S. Constitution.

An ICE post on X said: “Enforcement update … 538 arrests, 373 detainers lodged”.

New Jersey Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim said they were “deeply concerned” about the Newark raid by immigration agents.

“Actions like this one sow fear in all of our communities – and our broken immigration system requires solutions, not fear tactics,” they said in a joint statement.

Mr. Trump has vowed to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history,” impacting an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

On his first day in office he signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area while vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”

His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed during Trump’s first presidency, under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.

The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.

Earlier in the week the Republican-led U.S. Congress green-lit a bill to expand pretrial incarceration for foreign criminal suspects.

Mr. Trump frequently invoked dark imagery about how illegal migration was “poisoning the blood” of the nation, words that were seized upon by opponents as reminiscent of Nazi Germany.