Temporary Protected Status (TPS). A TPS designation allows certain nationalities stranded in America because of natural or political disasters in their home countries to work and reside legally for a period of time. The Trump administration has systematically dismantled those protections, as well as others that had been in place for decades. “Many of us warned them back in 2022 that we were letting in people who would be deeply vulnerable later on,” says Andrea Flores, who worked on immigration policy during the Obama and Biden administrations. On balance the courts have helped along Mr Trump’s deportation drive. In June, the Supreme Court ruled the administration could end protections for TPS-holders from Syria and Haiti. More than 1m people from 13 countries have now lost TPS. Many of them can no longer work, are subject to removal by court order—and, unlike some undocumented people, are particularly exposed because the government knows exactly where they are. “ALL TPS terminations are now IN EFFECT,” DHS posted on X, a social-media site. “Those with terminated TPS should leave NOW. If they don’t, we will DEPORT them.” Another 170,000 Salvadorans with TPS are set to lose their status in September; some of them have lived in America for 25 years. Mr Trump’s fixation on certain TPS-holders dates back years. During a presidential debate with Kamala Harris in 2024 he claimed that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were “eating the pets of the people that live there” (they were not). In July ICE began ordering Haitians in central Ohio to report to a local field office in Columbus where they were fitted with an ankle monitor —after reportedly being invited to self-deport. “Of course no one took that,” says Guerline Jozef of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a national advocacy organisation. Much of Haiti is controlled by gangs and beset by violence. Ms Jozef says deportation to the country is “potentially a death sentence”. Removal flights to Haiti had dwindled in recent years, but not stopped. In 2026 there has been one such flight each month from Louisiana to Cap-Haitien.
It is not only former TPS-holders who are suddenly vulnerable. The administration has also gummed up the bureaucratic process such that many immigrants—including applicants for visa renewal and for green cards— have been placed in legal limbo. (The number of pending immigration applications has reached a whopping 11.3m cases.) Federal agents have also recently ramped up arrests of immigrants with expired visas at airports. Such arrests are possible because ICE is collaborating more closely with the Transportation Security Administration, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a watchdog group. Some people detained while trying to fly have been stuck in the long queue to adjust their immigration status. Mr Mullin maintains that immigrants who follow the rules but find themselves in legal limbo won’t be deported. “If you’re going through the family-visa system, you have no criminal history, you get picked up, and… you’ve been showing up to your court dates,” he said in Oklahoma City, “you’re going to be released.” Immigrants will be forgiven if they do not take him at his word. DHS is also using artificial intelligence to help find people to arrest. Palantir, a tech firm with a long history of working with ICE, has provided the government with a tool known as ELITE. According to court testimony, agents using ELITE can generate a “target list” with photos and names
showing where immigrants are likely to be living. “It’s kind of like Google Maps,” one agent says. “If there’s like one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10%, you’re not going to go there.” Once they are picked up by ICE, immigrants are hustled through immigration court at a frenetic pace. Judges are holding so-called “mega- master hearings” to process cases as quickly as possible. Mobile Pathways, a non-profit that tracks immigration records, defines a mega-master as a hearing in which more than 50 cases are called. The outfit counted more than 1,300 such hearings in June. On a recent Friday in downtown Los Angeles, Judge Jaime Jasso heard 96 cases during one three-hour hearing. Most of them lasted less than five minutes. His eyes often flitted to the clock, ever-conscious of the time. A clerk at the court said that each judge has one mega-master a week, with immigrants and their families filling the hallway outside. Many immigrants do not show up to their court dates—either for fear that their case will be closed and they will be arrested, or, increasingly, because they do not receive sufficient notice that their hearing was changed. One lawyer who was unable to reach her clients told Judge Jasso that she was not sure they were still in the country. When a migrant fails to appear, a DHS lawyer will request that they be ordered to be removed “in absentia”. That was the outcome for more than a third of all cases in July, according to Mobile Pathways. The more no-shows there are, the more removal orders the government can rack up. Mr Trump’s mass-deportation campaign may be focused on immigrants, but it is also having a broader effect on America’s rule of law. ICE and Border Patrol agents have assaulted protesters with impunity, and have tried to arrest some with dubious claims that they had used their car as a weapon. When masked officers without identification hustle migrants into unmarked cars without warning, it looks like a kidnapping. Thousands of federal agents have been diverted from other investigative work, such as counter- terrorism or drug smuggling, to aid ICE. Local law-enforcement officers, including staunch conservatives, worry that aggressive tactics could erode trust in police more broadly. “You can’t go in
and start throwing flashbangs in communities…and expect to be successful,” says Mark Dannels, a county sheriff in Arizona. Because Mr Dannels is close to the administration, he says, several sheriffs called him to complain. Many police departments had also worked hard to gain trust in immigrant communities, persuading undocumented people that they could safely report crimes. That work has been undone. Taken together, the rough edges and sheer brutality of Mr Trump’s deportation campaign are starting to reshape politics. Americans have largely soured on the president’s immigration agenda (see chart 4). His net approval rating on immigration hit -13 in August, according to an Economist/YouGov poll. Among Hispanics—whose support helped propel him to victory in 2024—net approval for Mr Trump’s handling of immigration is a disastrous -35. Some 55% of Hispanics support abolishing ICE, ten percentage points more than white or black Americans. Democrats are taking aim at several majority-Hispanic House seats currently held by Republicans, including two in south Texas. Yet America’s immigration politics may grow only more toxic. Mass deportations continue to be popular among Mr Trump’s base: 93% of those who identify as MAGA Republicans approve of the president’s handling of immigration. Mike Howell, a founder of the Mass Deportation Coalition, a
group formed after Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis to press the administration to stay the course, is not impressed with the higher arrest numbers. “They’re still really low,” he says. “It’s about going to places where there’s high densities, and, you know, grabbing there.” He hopes that support for mass deportations becomes a litmus test in every Republican primary election going forward. Indeed MAGA Republicans view Mr Mullin’s less confrontational approach as a cowardly retreat. Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s former chief strategist, and other MAGA influencers have argued for his replacement. Mr Mullin has perceived the need to shore up the MAGA base. In August, after he had made a reasonable-sounding comment to governors that some industries do need migrant workers, he followed up with a post on X: “NO amnesty for illegal aliens. Ever.” Democrats may also be heading for an intra-party fight over immigration enforcement. Although a clear majority of Democrats now support abolishing ICE, many stalwarts in the party fear sounding so radical on the issue that they alienate the broad swathe of voters who still support strong border security. Some Democratic and Republican moderates hope that Mr Trump’s cruelty, set against a long history of failed border policies, including under Mr Biden, has laid bare the need for immigration reform. Congress has not passed any meaningful immigration package since the 1990s. “I’ve seen us try and fail, and try and fail, and get close and fail, and I think if you look at the impact on our country for not getting this right, it’s dramatic,” admits John Curtis, a Republican senator from Utah. The irony is that for 20 years it has mostly been Republicans, including Mr Trump himself, who have blocked immigration reform, helping to foster the political environment that made Mr Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric so popular.
Today about half of Americans support increasing investment in border security and restricting the number of migrants who can apply for asylum. But a greater share of Americans also support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, are married to an American citizen, have lived in the country for at least a decade, or have American children (see chart 5). All these are the kinds of immigrants Mr Trump is rounding up. At least some in the campaign crowds who lustily cheered on Mr Trump seem to be catching on that the deportation drive he is delivering is not the one they wanted. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/08/27/donald-trump-is-delivering-the- deportations-he-promised
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Australia builds a Pacific alliance system to keep China out Chinese influence among Pacific island states is in retreat Aug 27th 2026 THE GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL is an old British colonial institution at the heart of Fiji’s capital. Tropical breezes blow off the harbour and through its whitewashed verandas to parliament across the street. On July 6th Fiji’s prime minister was hosting a banquet there for his Australian counterpart to celebrate a new mutual-defence pact between their two countries. They had just signed the treaty when word reached them that a Chinese submarine would shortly test-launch a ballistic missile into international waters north of Fiji. The test was only the second Chinese launch since 1980 of a ballistic missile into international waters. It spooked leaders of Pacific island countries, including Fiji, whose defence minister had unsuccessfully urged China to call it off, and some of whose soldiers are pictured above.