Trump administration reshapes US immigration enforcement and admissions

ICE removals accelerate as refugee admissions fall sharply

Immigration has always been central to Donald Trump’s political message. When he stepped onto the golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy for his first presidential term, he accused Mexico of sending drugs and crime north of the border; the BBC News review described the accusation as a constant rallying cry. Published October 26, 2026, the review examined five key changes in his second administration. Some first-term immigration ambitions were constrained by the courts, but the BBC said restraints were weaker in the second term, with a more accommodating Supreme Court and tens of billions in additional enforcement money from Congress. Trump promised a closed border and mass deportations in his successful 2024 campaign, and the BBC said few could deny that he had delivered both. The review also reported concern among some people who had favored tougher immigration restrictions that the administration’s tactics had gone too far.

The BBC said most of the headlines generated by Trump’s immigration policies had come from the US interior, where ICE agents rounded up people they say are in the country illegally. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised an immediate start to what he called the “largest deportation operation in American history,” with officials saying it would begin with people who had committed crimes first. Data from the Deportation Data Project, a repository of US immigration data run out of the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA, show that arrests and subsequent detentions in immigration facilities rose significantly after Trump returned to office, with detentions reaching a record of nearly 50,000 in July 2026. The same data showed that a large share of arrests involved people without criminal convictions; in July 2026, detentions of immigrants with criminal histories reached an all-time low of 27%. By mid-July, ICE was removing an average of 1,255 people from the country per day, compared with about 770 a day during Biden’s final months in office, although Biden’s own removals had risen sharply in his final year.

The BBC reported that ICE’s tactics in US cities had made many Americans uncomfortable, including many who had supported stricter restrictions broadly. It said the concern became increasingly evident after Operation Metro Surge, a two-month large-scale enforcement action in Minneapolis in early 2026 that left two US citizens dead. A New York Times and Siena poll released October 21 found that 50% of voters trusted Democrats to handle immigration, compared with 46% for Republicans, despite immigration being a traditional Republican strength. A separate Politico and Public First poll from late September found deep divisions within Republicans, with 31% of non-MAGA Republicans, meaning those not aligned with Trump’s movement, believing that the campaign had become too aggressive.

At the southern border, encounters increased sharply during Joe Biden’s presidency, with more than 4.5 million migrant “encounters” recorded in 2023 and 2024 alone, reflecting large numbers of people headed north toward the United States. The BBC said the Trump administration eventually brought monthly figures down significantly by restricting asylum claims and removing migrants who entered the US illegally without processing. Border encounters fell sharply after Trump returned to office. By the end of Trump’s first year back in office, the BBC reported that the chaotic scenes that had generated headlines around the globe during the Biden administration had largely gone. During a November 2025 trip to the border city of El Paso, Texas, the BBC found quiet streets where makeshift camps had previously housed thousands of migrants granted parole in the US while awaiting immigration proceedings.

Trump often described the border as the “most secure” in US history. The administration effectively froze asylum applications at the border, ended “catch and release” of detainees into the US, deployed troops to the border and pressured Mexico to reduce northbound migration. “President Trump promised the American people a secure border, and the data proves he delivered,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in an October 16 statement. “The results could not be clearer: strong enforcement works.”

Trump’s 2016 vow to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218km) US-Mexico border was a signature promise of his 2016 campaign. Progress on it sped up during his second term, aided by $46.5 billion (£34.7 billion) in new funding from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful” spending bill. Government figures showed that about 644 miles of “primary wall,” closest to the border, and 75 miles of “secondary wall” set slightly farther inside the US existed before Trump returned to the White House. Since then, the administration completed 250 additional miles of primary, secondary and waterborne barriers, along with technology designed to detect illegal crossings. Another 1,443 miles of barriers were under construction.

Experts said the construction totals presented a more complex picture than mileage alone because some work represented improvements or updates rather than entirely new barriers. The wall’s effect on broader immigration figures was also disputed. The construction and ICE data covered different parts of the administration’s enforcement program: barriers and detection technology at the border, and arrests, detentions and removals in the interior. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration enforcement expert at the American Immigration Council, said, “Since new wall construction has really begun in earnest, there has been no significant change in the number of people crossing the border.” He said there was no indication the wall had reduced migrant crossings and attributed the decline more to Trump’s policies and messaging. Trump continued to cite the wall as a successful policy and claim that Mexico paid for it. At a rally in Kentucky on October 17, he said, “I’m the King of the Wall.” He added, “By the way, Mexico did pay for that wall. I charged them tariffs and I charged them costs like they’ve never paid in history.”

Admission and protection changes affected different populations. Trump almost immediately suspended refugee admissions after returning to the White House, saying they could restart only if shown to be in US interests. In February, an executive order signed by Trump narrowly reopened the process for Afrikaners from South Africa. The White House repeatedly said Afrikaners were being killed and “persecuted,” a claim the government in Pretoria denied. The refugee cap for fiscal 2026 initially stood at 7,500 and was raised to 17,500 in May because of what the administration called an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation.” The BBC reported that overall refugee admissions had slowed. State Department data showed that 16,292 refugees were admitted in fiscal 2026, including 16,287 from South Africa. By comparison, the final two fiscal years of the Biden administration saw 60,000 refugee admissions in 2023 and 100,000 in 2024, with the largest 2024 groups coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela.

Hundreds of thousands of people protected from deportation lost that protection when the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian protection, during his second term. TPS allowed vetted individuals to live and work in the US when their home countries were deemed unsafe to return to. Haiti was among the countries covered. In June, the Supreme Court upheld the administration’s decision to end TPS for some 350,000 Haitians in the US. A linked BBC report, “Haitian migrants changed this US town - Trump’s deportation drive is reshaping it again,” said Haitian migrants had changed a US town and that Trump’s deportation drive was reshaping it again.

Other legal pathways to live and work in the US have narrowed through policy changes. The administration has subjected dozens of countries it deems security risks to full or partial freezes on visas and travel. Enhanced vetting and new rules requiring people residing in the US to return to their home countries to apply for green cards have slowed that process. In September 2025, the administration introduced a $100,000 fee on new H1-B visas for skilled workers, most of whom were Indian. In May, US Citizenship and Immigration Services said on X that registrations for 2027 were down 40%. In a statement, the agency said, “The data is a clear sign that the days of abusing the program with mass, low-wage registrations are over, and that the program is better serving its intended purpose of attracting highly skilled foreign workers and protecting the wages, working conditions and job opportunities of American workers.”

A court has blocked the fee for now, although the BBC reported that the threat of it appears to have deterred employers. Some experts cautioned that the administration’s goals of protecting American jobs, raising wages and stopping firms from outsourcing could prove elusive. A Wharton School of Business study found that the H1-B changes would have “no significant impact” on US-born workers’ wages, with any reduction in competition offset by reduced productivity growth.

Another pathway opened for applicants with substantial funds. The “Trump Gold Card,” launched in 2025, sought to entice wealthy foreigners to live in the US in exchange for a $1 million “gift” to the US government and a non-refundable $15,000 application fee. Trump said the program would boost the US economy. The BBC said its uptake appeared minimal; by April, only one applicant had been accepted.

Who should be allowed to live in the US remains a major issue for voters in the 2026 midterms, which the BBC said were largely seen as a referendum on the Trump presidency. Trump continued to cite the wall as a successful policy, while Mullin said border data proved the administration’s border promise had been delivered. The review documented the disputed effect of the wall, legal and business concerns, and concern among some people who had favored tougher restrictions. The review also included linked BBC reporting. A linked report, “Hispanic voters helped bring Trump to power - in Texas, the tide may be turning,” said Hispanic voters had helped bring Trump to power and that the tide may be turning in Texas. A linked BBC video, “Watch: Texas voters share concerns over cost of living ahead of midterms,” reported that Texas voters were sharing concerns about the cost of living ahead of the midterms.