Immigration policy must focus on real threats

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Although immigration enforcement played a crucial role in last year’s presidential election and has been a major talking point surrounding the second Trump administration, it is difficult to gain a clear picture of how the president’s policies are shaping up. Let’s start with a couple of parameters to help frame the discussion:

— The American people voted for Donald Trump in 2024; a major reason was his promise of mass deportations.

— Some activists say many people who have been detained or deported have “no criminal record.” While there is room for argument about what level of enforcement is reasonable or humane, if somebody is in this country illegally, they have violated U.S. law.

— According to anecdotal evidence, numerous people who are legally in this country and even citizens have been deported. Others have been arrested at courthouses while attempting to follow the legal process to remain in the country. This is despite Trump’s claims that “the worst of the worst” will be deported.

— The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed last month by Congress and signed by Trump, adds $170 billion over four years for border and immigration enforcement and detention, reflecting the priorities of Republican legislators and the people who voted for them.

— As a candidate, Trump successfully urged Republicans to bury an immigration bill that initially had bipartisan support.

— Despite Trump’s bombast, during his first term as president he deported fewer people per year than Barack Obama or George W. Bush did during their presidencies. During the first four months of Trump’s second term, his administration deported fewer people than the Biden administration did during a similar time period. Trump’s administration is either unserious or incompetent when it comes to deportations.

In spite of those facts and in spite of rhetoric on both sides of the issue, the impact of Trump’s policies is difficult to quantify. But a new report from the Deportation Data Project at the University of California offers some insight.

In Washington, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made an average of 145 arrests in each full month since Trump returned to office; during the final 16 months of Joe Biden’s presidency, the average was 93 arrests. In June, there were 277 arrests in the state.

Notably, experts tell The Seattle Times, all of those arrested in Washington remain in detention. “Some used to be released into the community with a form of monitoring, like ankle bracelets or periodic ICE check-ins,” The Times reported. University of Washington researcher Phil Neff said, “It is striking to me to see such a clear pattern.”

In February, 43 percent of those arrested in Washington had criminal convictions; by June, that rate had declined to 31 percent as the administration expanded its efforts. Critics say reaching arrest quotas has supplanted public safety as the goal of the administration and ICE agents.

All of this — along with economic impacts — should be considered as the public forms opinions regarding the administration’s policies and its highly publicized efforts. Most concerning is the arrest of citizens or those attempting to follow the law — an occurrence that is infrequent but one that should generate outrage from Trump’s supporters as well as his critics.

Enforcement of the law is essential to an ordered society. But the Trump administration must maintain its focus on those who pose a violent threat, rather than capricious policies driven by rhetoric rather than facts.