Department of Homeland Security credits Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts for migration decline
Trump to continue Minnesota operations, praises DHS Secretary Kristi Noem amid fatal shootings
Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich reports on President Donald Trump’s decision to maintain the Minnesota immigration operation amid shakeups on ‘Special Report.’
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The United States is experiencing negative net migration, according to figures released by the Census Bureau on Wednesday, to the approval of the Trump administration.
The Department of Homeland Security jumped on the news, saying in a statement that its mass deportation efforts had helped achieve that apparent administration goal.
“In just one year, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. under the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration,” the agency said in a statement.
The Census Bureau reported that population growth slowed significantly over the past fiscal year, increasing by 0.5% or 1.8 million people between July 2024 and July 2025.
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That figure accounted for the slowest population growth since the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. saw a 0.2% increase in population.
By contrast, in the final year of the Biden administration, the population grew by 1% — the fastest since the middle of the second Bush administration in 2006.
Christine Hartley, assistant chief of the Census Bureau’s estimates and projections division, officially said the slowdown was “largely due to a historic decline in net international migration.”
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Domestic birth and death rates, by comparison, remained stable compared with 2024, leading experts to cite net migration figures.
Every state except West Virginia and Montana saw slowing population growth or an acceleration in population decline, if present.
South Carolina was marked as the fastest-growing state, with a net domestic migration increase of more than 66,000.
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The White House celebrated the goal of “negative net migration” in an official statement in August.
Like DHS, Trump credited his ultimately correct projection to the end of the “migrant invasion” and to mass deportation operations commenced under Secretary Kristi Noem.
Around that time, Noem boasted of 1.6 million illegal immigrants who “left” the U.S. within the first 200 days of Trump’s term. Supporters have said the mass deportation agenda has led to self-deportation, which could account for that particular prose.
“This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off of schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans. Thank you, President Trump,” Noem said.
During a visit to Arizona last year, border czar Tom Homan said 90% of asylum seekers will end up with an order of removal because of a fraudulent claim.
“You can’t demand due process and ignore the decision at the end of that due process, which is an order of removal,” he said at the time, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.
Census Bureau announces ‘negative net-migration,’ as DHS cites 3 million illegal immigrants deported
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The United States is experiencing negative net migration, according to figures released by the Census Bureau on Wednesday, to the approval of the Trump administration.
The Department of Homeland Security jumped on the news, saying in a statement that its mass deportation efforts had helped achieve that apparent administration goal.
“In just one year, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. under the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration,” the agency said in a statement.
The Census Bureau reported that population growth slowed significantly over the past fiscal year, increasing by 0.5% or 1.8 million people between July 2024 and July 2025.
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That figure accounted for the slowest population growth since the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. saw a 0.2% increase in population.
By contrast, in the final year of the Biden administration, the population grew by 1% — the fastest since the middle of the second Bush administration in 2006.
Christine Hartley, assistant chief of the Census Bureau’s estimates and projections division, officially said the slowdown was “largely due to a historic decline in net international migration.”
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Domestic birth and death rates, by comparison, remained stable compared with 2024, leading experts to cite net migration figures.
Every state except West Virginia and Montana saw slowing population growth or an acceleration in population decline, if present.
South Carolina was marked as the fastest-growing state, with a net domestic migration increase of more than 66,000.
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The White House celebrated the goal of “negative net migration” in an official statement in August.
Like DHS, Trump credited his ultimately correct projection to the end of the “migrant invasion” and to mass deportation operations commenced under Secretary Kristi Noem.
Around that time, Noem boasted of 1.6 million illegal immigrants who “left” the U.S. within the first 200 days of Trump’s term. Supporters have said the mass deportation agenda has led to self-deportation, which could account for that particular prose.
“This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off of schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans. Thank you, President Trump,” Noem said.
During a visit to Arizona last year, border czar Tom Homan said 90% of asylum seekers will end up with an order of removal because of a fraudulent claim.
“You can’t demand due process and ignore the decision at the end of that due process, which is an order of removal,” he said at the time, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.
Original article source: Census Bureau announces ‘negative net-migration,’ as DHS cites 3 million illegal immigrants deportedView comments(7)
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Omar says Trump’s ‘hateful rhetoric’ causes threats against her to ‘skyrocket’
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A day after a man charged her at the podium at a town hall in Minneapolis, Rep. Ilhan Omar at a news conference Wednesday pinned the blame on President Donald Trump.
“Blame is very interesting, but facts are more important, and what the facts have shown since I’ve gotten into elected office is that every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” Omar said.
In Tuesday’s incident, police say 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak was observed by officers using a syringe to spray an unknown liquid onto the congresswoman. Kazmierczak was arrested and booked into Hennepin County Jail on suspicion of third-degree assault, Minneapolis police said.
Preliminary reports indicate the liquid was non-toxic, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Wednesday.
Asked Wednesday about the attack, Omar said the man who attacked her “was specifically upset that Trump’s order to deport Somalis was not yielding enough deportations of Somalis, so he wanted to come get the person he thought was protecting the Somalis?”
Neither the FBI, which took over the investigation on Wednesday, or Minneapolis police have commented on a motive in the attack.
Omar has been the target of verbal attacks from Trump for years. More recently, his attacks have come alongside escalated rhetoric describing the Somali community in Minnesota, the largest in the nation.
In the past several weeks, Trump has called Omar a “fake sleazebag,” and called for her to be thrown out of the U.S.
In a phone interview Tuesday evening with ABC News’ Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott, Trump said he hadn’t seen video of the incident and accused Omar, without providing evidence, of possibly staging the attack.
“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” Trump said. “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
Asked Wednesday if she had reservations about public events after Tuesday’s incident, Omar replied, “Well, I think my presence here should tell you that the fear and intimidation doesn’t work on me.”
“The president’s rhetoric, the attacks from him since I’ve gotten into public office, from the right wing, has always been really to stop me from being in public service, to intimidate me, to make me want to quit. And my only message is it hasn’t worked thus far, and it’s not going to work in the future,” she said.
The incident came amid tensions in Minneapolis between local officials and the Trump administration over the immigration crackdown in the city that has seen two U.S. citizens killed in shootings involving federal law enforcement.
Seconds before the man charged the podium, Omar called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Afterward, she told reporters that she won’t be intimidated.
“You know, I’ve survived more, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think that they can throw at me because I’m built that way,” she said.
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U.S. Capitol Police said Tuesday that threats against members of Congress increased for the third year in a row. The department said it investigated 14,938 concerning statements, behaviors and communications directed against members of Congress, their families and their staff last year — compared to 9,474 in 2024.
In a statement about the alleged assault, Capitol Police said in a statement, “Tonight, a man is in custody after he decided to assault a Member of Congress — an unacceptable decision that will be met with swift justice.” The department said it is “working with our federal partners to see this man faces the most serious charges possible to deter this kind of violence in our society.”View comments(6.7k)
Are Trump’s immigration policies still popular after the fatal ICE shootings in Minneapolis? Here’s what the polls say.
More Americans now want to abolish ICE than keep it going.
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In January 2025, President Trump returned to the Oval Office promising to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
His inspiration, he said, was the “Eisenhower model” — a reference to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1954 campaign, known by the ethnic slur “Operation Wetback,” to detain and expel Mexican immigrants in what amounted to a nationwide “show me your papers” rule.
Since then, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has surged Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents into more than a half dozen major U.S. cities with a new quota of 3,000 arrests per day, up from 1,000 previously. In response, agents have increasingly rounded up noncriminals in public places, as top White House aide Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda — instructed them to do back in May, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Rather than “develop target lists of immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, a longstanding practice,” the Journal reported, Miller told agents to target “Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores.”
As a result, “at-large” immigrant arrests in U.S. communities have increased by 600% over the past year, according to a new report by the American Immigration Council — and the number of people with no criminal record being held in ICE detention on any given day has increased by 2,450%. (Being present in the U.S. unlawfully is a civil immigration law violation punishable by deportation — not a federal crime punishable by prison.)
Meanwhile, federal agents have shot and killed two U.S. citizens opposed to Trump’s immigration policies — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37 — during recent enforcement operations in Minneapolis.
So what do Americans think, one year in? Do they approve of the president’s approach to immigration? Do they want ICE to be “abolished?” Here’s a quick rundown of some of the major trends and themes that have emerged in recent polls.
Trump has lost trust on immigration
For years, immigration had been one of Trump’s strongest issues. In the 2024 presidential election, 53% of exit-poll respondents said they trusted Trump more than his Democratic rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, to handle the issue; only 44% said they trusted Harris more than Trump.
This trust carried over into the early months of Trump’s presidency. A few weeks after he returned to the White House, a February 2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 50% of Americans approved of how Trump was handling immigration. At the time, just 41% disapproved.
But those numbers have shifted dramatically over the past year. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted both before and after Pretti was killed — making it the first to gauge public response to his death — finds that approval of Trump’s immigration policy has plummeted 11 percentage points to the lowest level of his second term: just 39%.
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In contrast, a majority of Americans (53%) now disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration. What was a net positive issue for the president (+9 points) has become a net negative (-14 points).
Trump’s overall job-approval rating (38%) is also as low as it has ever been.
Americans think agents are going after the wrong people in the wrong way
What changed? Last February, 59% of Americans approved of “the Trump administration’s program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally,” according to a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted at the time. Just 41% disapproved.
But a follow-up CBS News/YouGov poll conducted earlier this month — after Good’s death and before Pretti’s — found that Americans have moved away from Trump on this question by a net total of 26 points. Most (54%) now disapprove of Trump’s deportation “program”; fewer (46%) approve.
The latest CBS News/YouGov survey offers some clues as to why. For instance:
- A majority of Americans (54%) think the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than they expected.
- Most Americans also think the administration is prioritizing people “who are not dangerous criminals” for deportation (56%) rather than people who are dangerous criminals (46%).
- Most Americans (61%) think ICE is being “too tough” when it stops or detains people.
- Most Americans (52%) think ICE is making communities “less safe”; just 31% think ICE is making communities more safe.
- And most Americans say that the “recent events in Minneapolis” have made them feel that ICE operations should be decreased (53%) rather than increased (25%).
In other words, a consensus was forming even before Pretti was fatally shot over the weekend: that Trump’s immigration approach is going after the wrong people in the wrong way; that it is counterproductive; and that it should be dialed back.
Case in point: a Yahoo/YouGov poll conducted after Good’s death found that Americans now believe by a 20-point margin that the administration’s recent immigration raids are doing “more harm than good” (54%) instead of “more good than harm” (34%) — and that gap is even wider among the independents (58% to 30%) and Latinos (66% to 24%) who tend to swing elections.
In the wake of Pretti’s fatal shooting on Jan. 24, these views are only likely to solidify. According to the new Reuters/Ipsos survey released on Jan. 26, nearly six in 10 Americans (58%) now think ICE’s crackdown has “gone too far.” Just 12%, meanwhile, say ICE has not gone far enough; another 26% say its efforts have been “about right.”
On the flip side, most Americans think “the actions of those protesting against ICE operations” have been about right (29%) or not gone far enough (29%), according to the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll. Only a minority (42%) think the protests have gone too far.
And even fewer (27%) told Yahoo and YouGov that Good’s shooting was justified. For Pretti’s shooting, that number is down to 20%.
Abolish ICE?
Looking forward, Americans don’t disagree with the idea that people who enter the country illegally and then commit crimes should be deported.
The problem for Trump, according to CBS and YouGov, is that while 50% of U.S. adults say they like what “Trump is trying to accomplish” with his deportation program, only 37% say they like how “he’s going about it.”
Nearly two-thirds (63%) do not.
Instead, Americans seem to prefer a more nuanced approach. Last July, a Yahoo/YouGov poll found that just a quarter of Americans (25%) wanted the federal government to “round up and deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible, regardless of whether they’ve committed other crimes.” Far more (61%) said the government should “deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S., but create a pathway to citizenship for those who have otherwise obeyed the law.”
Likewise, most respondents in the latest CBS News/YouGov survey say immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally should either be allowed to stay and apply for citizenship (46%) or stay without becoming citizens (9%). Only 45% prefer Trump’s policy — that is, requiring all of them to leave the United States.
As for ICE itself, just 27% of Americans said last June (in an Economist/YouGov poll) that they would support “abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and replacing it with a different agency.” Forty-five percent said they would oppose such a move.
But when YouGov asked again after Pretti’s death, more Americans said they would support (46%) than oppose (41%) abolishing the agency.
Even so, Americans still don’t trust Democrats more than Republicans on immigration. According to the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 32% say Democrats have a better approach on the issue. Slightly more (37%) side with Republicans. The rest say they’re not sure or that neither party is better.
