What It Would Take to Deport Millions of Immigrants

Donald Trump is calling for the biggest deportation program in American history. The costs and hurdles would be enormous.

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he vowed to build a wall to seal the border and keep criminals from entering the country. This campaign season, his immigration agenda has a new focus: a mass deportation program unlike anything the country has seen.

His party’s platform, ratified at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, promises the “largest deportation effort in American history,” and immigration was the theme of Tuesday’s gathering.

What would it take to deport millions of people? Is it even possible?

There were 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2022, according to the latest government estimates, and more than eight out of 10 have been in the country for more than a decade. Mr. Trump said during the debate last month that there were 18 million, which is unsubstantiated.

Fleeing political and economic turmoil, migrants from countries like Venezuela have crossed the border in record numbers during the Biden administration.

Mr. Trump and the Republican platform have made broad declarations but thus far offered scant details about their intended operation.