Former President Donald Trump is sticking to a campaign promise to launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” which could tear apart millions of American families that are a mix of citizens and noncitizens.
Out of 130 million U.S. households, about 5.6 million — or 1 in 25 — include undocumented immigrants, according to Pew Research Center data provided to NBC News.
In an interview with Time magazine published this week, Trump reiterated his campaign trail promise to rid the country of people without legal permission to be here. He said he would first use the National Guard and local police, and then the military if warranted, to force the immigrants “back from where they came.”
“These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country. An invasion like probably no country has ever seen before,” he told Time.
While Trump often mentions migrants who have recently crossed the border into the U.S., the reality is that a big part of undocumented immigrants have deep-seated roots in the country and an operation targeting them would have significant ripple effects in American society.
Here are some of the numbers:
- There are about 20 million people in households with mixed immigration statuses, including about 10.3 million people who are undocumented and 9.7 million others who are either citizens or other immigrants with a form of legal permission to live in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center data.
- Most undocumented immigrants have been here on average for 16 years, with the number varying by state; in California, the average time is 20.3 years.
- There are about 825,000 undocumented children who are 17 years and younger in the U.S., according to the data.
- Additionally, there are more than 3.4 million undocumented immigrants in the country with U.S.-born children younger than 18.
A mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would mean some family members would be removed and others left behind, including millions of children or other U.S.-born or naturalized family members. Some who are citizens could also be swept out or have no option but to follow family.
Nearly 3 million people who were in the country illegally since before Jan. 1, 1982, as well as certain farmworkers, were able to apply for legal permanent residency under the Immigration Reform and Control Act that then President Reagan signed in 1986. But since then, there has been no legislation to expand legalization to millions who have been in the U.S. for decades despite broad public support for it.
“Since there hasn’t been mass legalization since 1986, there is space for these kinds of families to exist where not everyone has the same citizenship,” said Leisy Abrego, a professor in the Chicano and Chicana Central American Studies department at University of California, Los Angeles.
Rosa Sanchez, 34, lives in Phoenix with her American citizen husband and U.S.-born children. Sanchez said Trump’s sweeping deportation proposal is frightening for her mixed-status family.
Sanchez has been in the country for 23 years, except for two weeks, when she returned to Mexico to fix her immigration status. But she re-entered the U.S. when a drug cartel member began pursuing her, sending her texts, telling her she would be his wife soon — all signs that she was in danger of being kidnapped, she said.
A mother of six, including a daughter who is a cancer survivor, Sanchez now has protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). She and her husband operate a nonprofit organization, Mehug, that they started to help parents with special needs children. Sanchez said she and her husband haven’t made a contingency plan if Trump is elected and she is deported, “because it’s not an option for us.” Although she has DACA, Trump previously tried to end it and barred new applicants from the program.
“My 13-year-old … she lost her eye when she was 9 months old and has a prosthesis,” she said. Nine weeks ago, Sanchez said her daughter called her because her eye had come out as she walked to the bathroom in the school hallway. She needed her mom’s help putting it back in.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if I am in Mexico and these things happen,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez’s husband, Everk Sanchez, said their family provides support in many ways to the community and to other families with cancer. He also does pro bono consulting for people with small businesses.
“I cannot go out and spend hours with the community if my wife is not taking care of my daughters,” he said.
Some families still haven’t reunited after policies enacted during Trump’s term in office.
Under Trump’s hallmark “zero tolerance” illegal immigration initiative, he oversaw the separation of thousands of migrant children and babies from their parents at the border, including some U.S. citizen children who were placed in foster care. The separations created emotional chaos, forced children to live in “tent cities” and led to federal lawsuits. Trump ended the policy amid backlash. Some children have still not been reunited with their families, the Biden administration confirmed.
In the Time magazine interview, Trump justified using the military for civilian enforcement of his proposed immigration measures, which is prohibited by law, saying “these aren’t civilians.” As he has previously done, Trump cited as his model former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his deportation sweeps, that were known by the bigoted moniker of Operation Wetback.
Trump spoke of 15 million to 20 million undocumented people in the U.S., using numbers often cited by immigration restrictionist groups. But the Pew Research Center, which does not take sides on political or policy issues as well as other organizations, estimates there were about 10.5 million people in the U.S. who were undocumented as of 2021.
A spokesperson for Trump previously told The Washington Post that Americans can expect that Trump will restore all of his prior policies on immigration and implement brand new crackdowns immediately on his return to the Oval Office.
