Donald Trump is a person who is strongly influenced by his perception of others; some claim that he has no inner sense of self at all. And so it was only moderately surprising that on Monday he corrected his hard line on the occupation of Minneapolis by the immigration police ICE.
After even Republican politicians in Washington an independent investigation of the Shooting of nurse Alex Pretti demands and national outrage reached a crescendo, Trump relented. The martial ICE commander Greg Bovino was withdrawn from Minneapolis. At the same time, Trump apparently held conciliatory talks with the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, and with Governor Tim Walz.
Bovino was replaced by Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, who had already headed ICE under US President Barack Obama. Homan is also considered a hardliner. But at the same time he is said to have taken a less rough, more targeted approach. The images of ICE troops using extreme brutality against demonstrators and supposedly illegal immigrants should apparently disappear.
At least a small sigh of relief spread among the population of Minneapolis. “I hear violins playing softly,” one citizen posted in a Facebook group whose members share news about ICE’s presence in Minneapolis. But she was immediately reminded that ICE was still in the city and that residents who might be targeted by ICE should continue to be cautious.
Even if ICE withdraws from Minneapolis, it is unlikely that the Trump administration’s massive campaign against undocumented immigrants will stop. ICE had also tactically retreated after massive attacks on Los Angeles and Chicago. And now it is already being reported that the force is targeting the states of Maine and Massachusetts.
Campaign promise: deportations
Trump plans to make good on his campaign promise to take tough action against the approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants in the USA. His „Big Beautiful Bill“passed last summer, included $170 billion to expand ICE. By the end of the year, a total of 12,000 new so-called “agents” had been hired, an increase in the size of the authority by 120 percent.
The rapid expansion of the force was achieved not least through extreme incentives. Each new ICE employee received a “hiring bonus” of $50,000. The training period was shortened from 5 months to 42 days. According to experts, this is completely insufficient training time. veteran ICE officials told the magazine Atlantic, that a large number of recruits would never have made it through training in normal times.
It remains to be seen whether the expanded force will achieve presidential advisor Stephen Miller’s target of one million deportations in 2026. And Trump’s goal of impressing his base with his visible toughness doesn’t seem to be working either. Trump’s popularity ratings have fallen since the escalation by ICE in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minnesota at a new low. 61 percent of Americans think ICE’s actions are excessive.
Did Obama simply deport more discreetly?
Meanwhile, apologists for Trump’s deportation policy claim that what he is doing is not significantly different from what Barack Obama did. Obama was the record deportator; more than three million undocumented immigrants were expelled from the country between 2008 and 2016. Trump achieved just 605,000 in his first year in office.
The difference, the argument continues, is merely optics. The ICE force, which was founded together with the higher-level Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immediately after September 11, 2001, simply acted more discreetly under Obama.
This argument cannot be completely dismissed. The legal situation of the 14 million people who live in the USA without papers has not improved significantly since Obama. The last time immigration law was fundamentally reformed in the United States was in 1986. Since then, the number of immigrants has increased dramatically. Their role in the American economy and society has changed, and the situation at the border has become far more complicated.
No new immigration law for 30 years
But all attempts to adapt the law to the new circumstances have failed because the parties in Congress have not been able to agree on a new immigration law for 30 years. But even if the situation of undocumented immigrants in the United States has not become clearer, there are fundamental differences in the way Obama and Trump deal with it.
Obama wanted to demonstrate that he takes existing immigration law seriously, not least in order to secure support in Congress for his new immigration law. But Obama proceeded according to clear rules and priorities. ICE thoroughly vetted the immigrants to be deported. An attempt was made to protect well-integrated, working people and not to tear families apart. Single newcomers were particularly at risk.
But Obama’s calculations didn’t work out; he couldn’t get his bill through the divided Congress. Trump, on the other hand, prevented a new law from being passed before he took office by putting pressure on members of his party. He obviously wanted to inherit the immigration crisis that Biden left behind so that he could take tough action and position himself as America’s savior from the flood of foreigners.
The political triumph for Trump is now at least in question. The presence of ICE is opposed by a growing portion of the population. Another, less openly stated goal of the Trump administration has already been achieved. Part of the $170 billion budget for Trump’s deportation measures included $45 billion for a network of new deportation camps. The camps are operated by private companies, notably Core Civic and GEO Group. The managing directors of both companies were already pleased with “unprecedented profits” in the second half of 2025. And that was just the beginning.