The administration of US President Donald Trump on Monday hailed the early results of his immigration crackdown, despite mounting concerns over due process.
The administration displayed photographs of alleged criminal offenders on the White House lawn and prepared to target cities and states that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
According to the White House, the Republican president plans to sign an executive order directing senior officials to identify, within a month, the cities and states failing to comply with federal immigration laws sufficiently.
It will be recalled that Trump launched an aggressive enforcement campaign following his second return to office, increasing troop deployment to the southern border and pledging to deport millions of immigrants residing illegally in the United States.
The president, who made immigration a major campaign issue in 2024, asserted that such actions were necessary after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
At a press briefing, White House officials celebrated a sharp decline in illegal border crossings during Trump’s first three months in office, even as concerns were raised regarding the due process rights of immigrants and US citizens inadvertently caught in the crackdown.
Newspot reports that US Border Patrol arrested no fewer than 7,200 migrants illegally crossing the border in March, the lowest monthly figure since 2000 and a significant drop from the peak of 250,000 recorded in December 2023.
Meanwhile, Democrats and civil rights advocates have criticised Trump’s heightened enforcement tactics, highlighting, among other cases, the deportation of several US-citizen children alongside their parents, including one child suffering from a rare form of cancer.
