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By Silky Shah
This article was originally published by Truthout
With Congress-approved funding, ICE detention is expected to triple in size, mirroring the scale of Japanese internment.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025 has been a nightmare for immigrants and for the country. The management’s mass detention and deportation agenda brought forth an onslaught of cruel, violent policies intended to sow fear, suppress dissent, and vilify immigrants. Taking stock of all of Trump’s actions on immigration in 2025 is nearly impossible. This is, of course, by design. The Trump administration’s goal was to “flood the zone” with a flurry of policy changes to overwhelm us. But in spite of its efforts to quash any opposition, activists, organizers, lawyers, journalists, and ordinary people across the country have mounted an incredible resistance to the mass deportation agenda.
A year into Trump’s second term, the White House’s blanket defense of the brutal murder of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis has rattled the nation.Conditions inside detention have deteriorated so much that at least six people have died while in ICE custody as January 3,2026. (In comparison in 2024 a total of 11 people died in detention). Calls to abolish ICE are once again gaining steam. The years ahead will no doubt continue to be violent (and deadly) for immigrants and those who support them. But this moment presents an opening to build toward dismantling the enforcement apparatus. reflecting on 2025 through an abolitionist lens is critical as we develop strategies to combat the ongoing mass deportation agenda.
Although Trump 2.0 has inaugurated a new era in state and vigilante violence against immigrants, the administration’s actions build on a long history of anti-black racism, criminalization, and U.S. militarism that have fueled the detention and deportation machine’s growth over time.
In the first half of 2025, a radical new order for the U.S. deportation regime appeared to be on the horizon. A series of stark new policy departures sowed widespread panic and threw affected communities and political opponents into disarray. Terrifying as the administration’s draconian actions were, many of its early measures were defeated by resistance, rejected by the courts, or collapsed due to poor planning.
