Donald Trump Deporting Fewer Mexican Citizens Than Joe Biden—Official
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The United States is deporting fewer people back to Mexico than at the same time in 2024, it was reported Thursday.
The director of Baja California's Migrant Affairs Office in Mexico said that 32,537 Mexican nationals were returned during the first three months of the year, compared to 47,659 during the same time last year, per Border Report.
"The numbers predicted by President Donald Trump are well below what we are seeing in terms of deportations," Adriana Minerva Espinoza Nolazco told reporters this week.
Newsweek reached out to the Baja California state government and Mexico's National Institute of Migration for comment via email Friday morning.
A senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official told Newsweek that the 142,000 deportations carried out since January 20 were "just the beginning."
Carlos Flores, of Honduras, who was deported from the United States, rubs his face as he looks at his phone at a migrant shelter where he lives with his wife and two daughters, on May...
Carlos Flores, of Honduras, who was deported from the United States, rubs his face as he looks at his phone at a migrant shelter where he lives with his wife and two daughters, on May 1, 2025, in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. More
AP Photo/Gregory Bull
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump promised mass deportations of illegal immigrants as part of his 2024 campaign, but the program has faced logistical and legal challenges. Reports have indicated a slight rise in deportations overall, but not a rapidly rising number.
What To Know
According to Border Report, Espinoza Nolazco said that about 4,200 people had been taken to a shelter meant for deportees since it opened on January 27. It was designed to temporarily house 500 people per day.
The shelter was set up to offer a place to sleep, along with food and basic services to aid migrants on their journey back home from the U.S., but only about 37 people per day have arrived.
There has also been an ease in the flow of migrants trying to reach the U.S., Espinoza Nolazco said, with between 50 percent and 60 percent fewer new arrivals in Tijuana.
The border city had been one of the main stopping points for immigrants awaiting appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during the Biden administration, but the majority of immigrants are now barred from making such bids for entry.
After Trump's first 100 days in office in April, the White House said that more than 100,000 people had been deported, but as Newsweek previously reported, accessing public data on removals has become difficult since former President Joe Biden left office.
Illegal border crossings from Mexico into the U.S. have dropped significantly, but leaders south of the border are remaining prepared for another influx, from the south or north.
What People Are Saying
Adriana Minerva Espinoza Nolazco, director of Baja California's Migrant Affairs Office in Mexico, told reporters this week: "We have to remain ready for an influx that could happen at any moment, we can't afford to rest and be caught unprepared."
A senior DHS official, in a statement to Newsweek: "President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was vilified and barred from doings its job for the last four years. In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress to carryout President Trump's promise of arresting and deporting aliens who have invaded our country.
"Additionally, illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequence. Thousands are using the CBP Home App to self-deport. Migrants are now even turning back before they reach our borders—migration through Panama's Darien Gap is down 99.99%."
Migration Policy Institute, in a brief on the U.S.-Mexico relationship this month: "No country is more critical for U.S. migration management than Mexico. The former administrations of U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador worked together toward a system in which migrants who reach their countries' shared border would do so through lawful means.
"Their efforts led to dramatic and sustained downturns in unauthorized crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024. The future of U.S.-Mexico migration cooperation, and to some extent broader regional efforts, now rests on negotiations between the Trump administration and the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum."
What Happens Next
Mexico appears ready to welcome more deportees from the U.S., while Trump's budget, currently sitting in Congress, is designed to empower ICE to increase removals.
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The last time this happened was 1965, according to Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive policy institute. President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized National Guard troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama that year. Protesters who set out from Selma were protected by over 3,000 National Guard troops, according to the National Archives. The protest march – the third attempt after previous marches were met with violence from state troopers – was led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and thousands of protesters walked to the State Capitol in Montgomery, where they delivered a voting rights petition to the governor. Goitein described Trump's deployment as 'extremely rare' in an interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto. She noted Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act – a move Trump hasn't taken yet. Asked Sunday whether he was prepared to invoke the law, Trump told reporters in New Jersey it 'depends whether or not there is an insurrection.' Historically, presidents have federalized National Guard deployment when requested by a governor whose resources are overwhelmed, such as during the LA riots or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana – or when a governor defies a court order, such as the Little Rock desegregation case, when President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard to support the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. CNN senior national security analyst and former DHS official Juliette Kayyem called the Trump administration's response to this weekend's protests an extreme overreaction and said it is 'not rational given the threat we're seeing.' 'This scenario – some urban unrest handled directly by police and state authorities overruled by a president who is defying a governor – is without modern precedent,' Kayyem said in a post on X. 'A democracy does not deploy military for unrest that looks like this,' Kayyem told CNN on Saturday. Following Hurricane Katrina, about 7,000 National Guard troops were federalized to support New Orleans; ports and prisons were closed, the police force was not functional, and nearly 2,000 people died. 'The numbers, when you just compare this to Hurricane Katrina … an entire city and court system underwater, you get a sense of why Governor Newsom and local law enforcement are very concerned,' Kayyem said. 'The comparison to 2,000 (National Guard troops) for a couple of hundred protesters, you can just get a sense of the sort of reaction that the Trump White House is having,' she said. The administration's diminishing of the standards for deploying and federalizing the National Guard under Title 10 is concerning, Kayyem added. 'This is part of an overall reaching by the Trump White House to utilize federal military resources in civilian society, without an insurrection, without a major flood, without a major crisis, and in defiance of political leadership.' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Trump called in the National Guard soldiers to 'address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester' and 'violent mobs attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents.' Even in the face of violence, disruptions and civil unrest, Kayyem said deploying the National Guard under Title 10 without the governor's cooperation, especially when local law enforcement is already handling safety concerns, is unnecessary. 'A car on fire, some unrest, people arrested – those are things that we have seen in our society for a long time. They're not unique, and that is why we have law enforcement,' Kayyem said. 'If they don't know how to deal with it, they then ask for state resources, and if the state resources are overwhelmed, then the state generally turns to the federal government.' In nearby Compton, a vehicle was set on fire where protesters began to gather Saturday, video from CNN affiliate KABC showed. On Friday, video showed several projectiles being thrown at officers equipped with body armor and protective shields outside a Los Angeles federal detention center. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, a crowd of protesters in Paramount became 'increasingly agitated, throwing objects and exhibiting violent behavior toward federal agents and deputy sheriffs,' the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said in an advisory Saturday night. In response, the department requested extra resources countywide and deployed additional deputies. 'LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment's notice. We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need,' Newsom said in a post on X Saturday night. 'Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County — not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis,' Newsom said in another post Sunday. Officials from the Trump administration described protesters as 'lawless rioters.' The Los Angeles Police Department, meanwhile, said Saturday's demonstrations within the city 'remained peaceful' and 'events concluded without incident.' When asked about the LA County Sheriff's Department describing protesters as exhibiting violent behavior, congresswoman Barragán said the violence was not coming from anti-immigration protesters. '(The sheriff) told me the situation in Paramount was under control, the people that were peacefully (protesting) have left. The situation was now across the street into the Compton area, and (these were) the unruly folks — that Saturday night crowd. The people that were there to actually protest immigration were gone,' Barragán said. 'We agree that if you're being violent, you should be arrested, you should be prosecuted,' she added. Because Trump's deployment of the National Guard has occurred in defiance of the governor's request, Kayyem predicts there is a higher likelihood the move will incite conflict. 'Our federalized troops are trained to do something, and that something is the use of force. They are not trained to de-escalate a political situation, civil unrest,' she said. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the National Guard soldiers are in Los Angeles to maintain peace amid ongoing tensions between immigration enforcement authorities and demonstrators this weekend – but the rules of engagement remain unclear. Although Noem said the soldiers are there to 'provide security for operations and to make sure that we have peaceful protests,' she did not provide specifics about their activities on the ground. Kayyem said if the troops also lack clarity of mission, problems can arise. 'Without a definitive mission statement and without rules of engagement … there will be mistakes, and those mistakes will not only potentially harm civilians, they will also potentially harm other law enforcement,' Kayyem said. 'This is dangerous for the troops … and it's dangerous for a population that, even if you view them as hostile, do not deserve to be put in harm's way because of that hostility.' US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized if the unrest continues. 'We need an administration that's not going to get to DEFCON 1 (the highest level of US military alerts) every time they see something on TV they don't like,' Kayyem said. 'Active Marines? That's just unheard of in the kind of situation we've seen.' Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard against Newsom's wishes comes on the heel of escalating tensions between the two leaders, with the president consistently targeting Democratic-led California in his efforts to use funding as leverage to enact his agenda. The administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California, according to multiple sources. Last month, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over a transgender athlete's participation in a sporting event. The administration also recently cut $126.4 million in flood prevention funding projects, and even before his inauguration Trump repeatedly went after the state's handling of devastating wildfires earlier this year. The president and Newsom have also publicly feuded for years. 'I see these actions as kind of intentionally inflammatory from the White House, because they want this escalation,' CNN political analyst Astead Herndon said. 'They want this fight with Gavin Newsom, and they want to be able to use the levers of federal power in that fight.' 'It shows a feature of this administration, which is to use the levers of federal power against its enemies as a means of exerting its own ideological prism,' Herndon added. Human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International criticized the 'dangerous' deployment of National Guard troops, which the executive director says is 'to target and punish those who speak out in defense of human rights.' 'This is not about protecting communities,' the organization's executive director, Paul O'Brien, said in a statement. 'This is about crushing dissent and instilling fear.' CNN's Brad Lendon, Karina Tsui, Antoinette Radford, Zoe Sottile and Danya Gainor contributed to this report.
