Immigration enforcement ramp-up has only just begun, VP Vance promises

Federal officials say Americans can expect to see even more muscular immigration enforcement in the coming months, with over 10,000 new ICE agents hitting the streets, armed with personal data harvested by private contractors.

Speaking on a Jan. 7 FOX NEWS broadcast, Vice President JD Vance said ICE would be going "door to door" in the coming months as agents carry out President Donald Trump's plans for the largest mass deportation in history. Federal officials say they've now got about 22,000 agents and investigators, up from 10,000 a year ago.

Without providing specific details, White House officials say 2.5 million people living illegally in the United States have already been deported or left under pressure, and promise far more will be leaving one way or another. Vance's comments were broadcast hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis shot and killed a woman inside her car during a chaotic confrontation.

White House officials have accused Democrats of encouraging illegal immigration to reshape the country's voting patterns.

Vance said the more aggressive enforcement that began in 2025 will ramp up this year. "All of the big investments that we've made in border security, what we've done is actually gotten 2.5 million illegal aliens out without any of the really big marquee things we've been working on," Vance said.

"I think we're going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online working for ICE, going door to door, making sure if you're an illegal alien you've got to get out of this country and if you want to come back, apply through the proper channels," he said.

Administration plans many more actions

Among the new, more aggressive moves underway:

• In November, federal officials announced they were planning to hire thousands of private "skip tracers" to conduct both online and in-person verification of the home and work addresses of up to 1.5 million people living in the United States. The contractors would be given batches of 50,000 names at a time, and are expected to provide photos of homes and workplaces, according to federal contracting data. They would also be required to gather utility bills, court records and employment verification information without telling anyone why they're collecting it.
• Immigration officials are exploring whether they can buy and convert large warehouses into detention and processing "megacenters." Buying the warehouses of the type often used by Amazon and other online retailers could allow federal officials to exempt themselves from many local zoning restrictions and oversight rules governing private or state-run prisons and jails. ICE detention teams have been hampered in Democrat-run cities and states where local jails don't assist with immigration detention, and adding the new capacity could allow much larger operations in those communities.
• A Virginia-based company is building a 5,000-bed temporary immigration detention center on Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas, near the southern border under a $232 million contract, according to the Department of Defense. Federal officials have said they want to add at least 60,000 detention beds to the approximately 41,000 beds they had this time last year.
• Last summer's "One Big Beautiful Bill" signed by President Donald Trump on July 4 provides $170 billion in immigration and border-related funding, all of which must be spent within about four years. Included in that funding is pay and benefits for 10,000 new ICE agents and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents. (It's not clear whether those jobs are in addition to the 12,000 already added.)

Opinions differ by party

When Trump took office, after winning the popular vote, estimates put the number of people living here illegally at anywhere between 10 million and 16.8 million.

Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that Trump has largely followed in his second term, specifically called for deploying ICE deportation agents "anywhere" in the country to enforce immigration laws - not just along the nation's borders.

"The patriotic men and women of (ICE) are doing God's work to protect this country," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on social media Jan. 5.

But many Americans think the enforcement has already gone too far.

An October Pew Research Center survey found that 53% of Americans say the Trump administration is doing "too much" when it comes to deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally, up from 44% in March. Opinions were starkly divided by party, with 86% of Democrats or those who lean Democratic saying the administration is going too far, compared with just 20% of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other critics of Trump's enforcement efforts liken ICE tactics to those used by Hitler's Gestapo, and say immigration agents are routinely trampling the rights and norms Americans are accustomed to as they sweep through frightened communities.

While Trump promised to go after immigrants without legal status who are "the worst of the worst," according to an analysis of ICE statistics by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, nearly 75% of the approximately 60,000 people in immigration detention as of November had no criminal convictions.

In a Jan. 8 statement, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lead Democrat on the Republican-controlled House Homeland Security Committee, called for Noem to testify before Congress on both the Minneapolis shooting and overall immigration tactics.

"The Trump administration’s out-of-control and unconstitutional invasion of our communities must be stopped before another American is injured or killed at the hands of their own government," the Mississippi Democrat said. "Republicans who continue to sit idly by as the Trump administration violates our communities and hurts Americans are as culpable as President Trump himself for the harm he is causing our great country."