Can't see the video above? Watch it here.
President Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations. More than a year into his second term, the White House has taken a sweeping approach to curbing illegal and legal migration.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR's immigration policy correspondent, breaks down the five strategies that make up the administration's mass deportation policy.
They include providing historic funding for immigration enforcement agencies, stripping legal pathways, reshaping previously little-known immigration courts and expanding the infrastructure focused on increasing the number of those detained and deported. It's a strategy that limits immigrants' options for arguing for permission to stay in the U.S., and eliminates previous pathways to legal status.
Over the past year, judges as high up as on the U.S. Supreme Court have weighed in on the measures taken. In some instances, district court rulings have barred some of the strategies, including ordering federal officers to stop making arrests in immigration courts.
Other efforts have been upheld by the courts, including the Supreme Court's most recent ruling allowing the administration to end temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians and a policy that allows border officials to turn migrants away before they physically cross to claim asylum.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday weighs in on Trump's landmark executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship.
Bustillo travels to Arizona, California and New York to break down this strategy — and the impacts on the agency, federal workers and immigrants going through these complicated systems.
Relying on over a year of reporting, policy memos, data and ultimately dozens of interviews, the Trump administration's strategy becomes clear.
Stay up to date with our Politics newsletter, sent weekly.
Copyright 2026 NPR
