First Net-Negative Immigration in Decades

JD Vance: Interestingly, some criticize us from the right because they want the pace of deportations to be higher. Frankly, I understand that, and I share that frustration. The counterargument is that the courts are trying to stop us at every step of the way. And up until a month ago, we didn’t have the resources for ICE to deal with this massive invasion that Joe Biden led into our country. We didn’t have the necessary resources to truly process many of those people.

That has changed thanks to the big, beautiful bill. We’ve also won some court cases, so I expect the pace of deportations to pick up a bit.

But the important thing is that when we’re criticized — and I sometimes hear this critique — “well, the deportation rate under the Trump administration is actually lower than it was under the Biden administration,” that’s actually a completely false statistic. It’s based on the idea that if you enter the country illegally and the Biden administration processes and expels you, it counts as a deportation. It counts as illegal immigration and then it counts as a deportation.

So you have to look at the net number, right? If you do +1 and then -1… I’m no math expert, but I’m pretty sure that equals zero. The net number is what really matters.

And where the Trump administration has been most successful is that we — I believe in 2025 — will have the first net negative immigration number in about 50 or 60 years in the United States. So there has been a really, really significant shift in immigration policy.