Coalition urges Trump to take harder line on immigration

A recently formed group of longtime conservative immigration experts wants the Trump administration to deport 1 million people this year. Billing itself as the Mass Deportation Coalition, the group on Wednesday released a flagship policy playbook outlining a way for the administration to do just that.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project and a key architect of the coalition, explained that the group and the playbook exist to urge President Donald Trump’s administration to double down on one of his primary campaign promises: enforcing immigration laws as they’re written on the books.

“We’re a nation of the rule of law. … As I go into tax season, I can’t just ignore that,” Howell said. “And Americans who have been living in what I’ll call anarcho-tyranny for years would like to see some of the most obvious lawbreakers met with the force of law.”

The playbook’s publication comes after the White House has faced public pushback against its immigration enforcement tactics and is seemingly toning down its approach to the issue. But members of the new Mass Deportation Coalition argue that the American people didn’t vote for Trump just so he could go soft on immigration. They say that now is the time for him to make good on the second plank of the Republican Party’s 2024 platform, and they hope their group’s advocacy will give the matter a political boost.

“I get what the Trump administration’s going up against,” Howell said, referring to what he called a “tough” political environment. “What we’re doing is adding constructive support—policies and political support—and coalitions to help gird the defenses for the president’s signature campaign promise, which is clearly under attack.”

For many Americans, recent events have soured perception of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. In January, protesters decried the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of Department of Homeland Security personnel in Minneapolis. More recently, an Afghan national died less than 24 hours after Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel detained him, and a nearly blind Burmese refugee died after ICE detained and then released him in Buffalo, N.Y.

The White House told WORLD in a statement on Thursday that 3 million illegal immigrants have left the country since President Trump took office for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025. The total includes illegal immigrants that the government has deported and those who’ve left the country voluntarily, the White House said.

Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center of the Heritage Foundation, which is another member of the coalition, said that the Trump administration hasn’t shown the public proof to back up that claim. Implementing the Mass Deportation Coalition’s playbook would provide more transparency and show the public that deporting millions of people is possible, she said.

But the playbook isn’t about affirming what the Trump administration is already doing so much as it is urging the administration to do even more.

“Phase one … focused on ‘worst of the worst.’ But worst of the worst gets you hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens,” Ries said. Now, she hopes the Trump administration will implement policies that would instead deport millions. The coalition recommends that federal officials go to worksites and arrest illegal immigrants working for U.S. companies. And it isn’t just the illegal immigrants that the government needs to crack down on, the group says.

“There are plenty of employers who regularly break the law in this regard. And you can impose fines and jail time for them,” Ries said. “If we’re ever going to break this cycle, then yes, consequences need to be applied to employers.”

When asked for comment about the Mass Deportation Coalition’s playbook, the White House told WORLD it does not plan to change course on its immigration policies.

“Nobody is changing the Administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities. As the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said, approximately 70% of deportations to date have been illegal aliens with criminal records.”

Still, White House Border Czar Tom Homan on Thursday admitted that worksite enforcement operations will play a larger role in the administration’s immigration crackdown going forward.

Kyle Brosnan is a vice president at the Oversight Project. He explained that a worksite enforcement crackdown—and most every other playbook proposal for how the United States can deport more illegal immigrants—would not rely on congressional or state and local government cooperation. The playbook instead focuses on what the executive branch can do by itself to deal with illegal immigration, he said. Its proposals include preventing illegal immigrants from opening bank accounts, dramatically expanding immigration detention facilities, and limiting asylum claims, among others.

“We assume that sort of two things are going to happen implicitly here,” Brosnan said. “One, that Congress is not going to change the law. … And then, second, that the locals aren’t really going to cooperate.”

Popular polls in recent months from the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press, and other institutions have indicated that a majority of the U.S. public opposes the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement practices. But Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, which is a member of the coalition, pointed to polling by his organization showing that a majority of Americans want to see illegal immigrants deported.

Chmielenski said his poll—in which 66% of respondents said they wanted all illegal immigrants deported—is better than the others because it focused on voters who were likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections and who had voted in 2024. It also asked respondents what Chmielenski characterized as better questions.

“What we were able to do through our questions was to get people—to take them through a process and get them to understand, ‘OK, listen, if you cross the border illegally, it’s a crime. So, do you think anybody who commits a crime should be deported?’” Chmielenski said. “Do you think businesses should profit from illegal immigration?’ Obviously, they said no.”

Critics of the Mass Deportation Coalition’s agenda say that most Americans don’t actually want current immigration laws enforced to their maximum extent, but rather want those laws to be changed.

Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, explained that the United States can have an immigration system that upholds security while also treating people with compassion.

“We can walk and chew gum,” Murray said, adding that most Americans want something more compassionate than what they are seeing under the Trump administration. “There’s been a lot of overreach, and Americans have reacted really strongly to it. The vast majority, I mean, well over 80%, would not be aligned with the coalition’s read on where the administration has been.”

She pointed to research indicating that a majority of Americans—and even of Republicans—want the administration to prioritize only deporting dangerous illegal immigrants and not all illegal immigrants.

But Chmielenski explained that when researchers stripped their questions down to the straightforward matter of whether people who came here legally should be removed, Americans had an equally straightforward answer.

“We wanted to just have them focus on, ‘OK, forget about who’s doing the deportations. Forget about DHS and the funding battle. Forget about all of that,’” Chmielenski said. “‘Let’s just ask you a straight question: Somebody who crosses the border illegally, do you think that person should be deported from the United States?’ And, again, most people said yes.”

William Wolfe, founder and executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, another member of the coalition, explained that he also believes people who crossed the border illegally should be deported.

“I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where compassion is ever pitted against justice, where kindness is ever an excuse for anarchy and lawlessness,” Wolfe said. “Anybody who’s claiming to be a Christian and yet arguing that duly enacted and just laws should not be enforced in our nation, are arguing something that’s completely antithetical to the morality and ethics we find in Scripture.”

Mike Howell from the Oversight Project said he is confident the White House will at least listen to the Mass Deportation Coalition’s suggestions.

“I have no doubt that our report will register,” he said. “Whether ultimately they take the guidance and follow through is something I, of course, hope they do. But we wouldn’t be doing this if we thought that were guaranteed. Our action is proof of the fact that we think this agenda item needs quite a bit of support.”