On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump took to the stage at Inauguration Day and promised to end unauthorized border crossings and “begin the process of bringing millions of criminal aliens back to their homes.”
ProPublica and the Texas Tribune spent the first 12 months of President Trump’s second term investigating in real time how this anti-immigration movement played out across the country.
We collected data that the government doesn’t provide or track, such as how many Americans are detained by immigration officials. We investigated crowd control methods used by federal agents in Los Angeles and Chicago, and spoke to families of immigrants the government sent to Guantanamo. After the Trump administration transferred more than 230 people to a high-security prison in El Salvador, we worked with Venezuelan journalists to gather records and proprietary data for the U.S. government. The government claimed that these people were “the worst of the worst.” Our report found that the majority had no criminal convictions in the US
Moves toward mass deportations are at the top of the Trump administration’s list of “wins” in its first year. Border crossings have plummeted and the number of people detained each day has reached a historic high. As federal agents patrol U.S. cities and towns, government officials say the multibillion-dollar effort is making the country safer.
Reporter Perla Treviso details the heady first year of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Has his administration fulfilled its promises, and if so, at what cost?
Watch the video here.
