President Donald Trump ordered ICE officials to execute the “largest Mass Deportation Program in History” in a clear escalation of his aggressive immigration agenda, setting up likely clashes with Democratic-run cities, many of them led by Black mayors.
In a Truth Social post published Sunday night, Trump, whose controversial policies ignited thousands of protests over the weekend as he held an unprecedented military parade on his birthday, instructed federal officers to “do all in their power” to carry out his mass deportation agenda, which reportedly includes a plan to arrest 3,000 undocumented individuals a day with a goal of 1 million deportations in a year.
The president said that to achieve his goal, the government would have to “expand efforts” in America’s “largest cities,” specifically naming Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Trump said “millions upon millions of illegal aliens reside” in the nation’s big cities, many of which are led by Black mayors.
“These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it!” said Trump.
Trump is doubling down on what will inevitably be a political and legal battle with the nation’s top Black mayors, as already taking place in Los Angeles, where Trump has deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines. LA Mayor Karen Bass has slammed the executive action as unnecessary and intentionally provoking chaos in the city, which is majority Black and brown. California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit seeking to have the National Guard removed from the city.
As theGrio previously reported, Trump’s military deployment in Los Angeles ignited concerns among Black leaders and advocates that he would do the same in the other majority Black and brown cities, where protests are likely to erupt.
“They’re more interested in portraying Black and brown people as agitators and criminals,” Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott told theGrio last week. “If they actually cared about making our cities safer, they’d do what we’ve done in Baltimore: work with communities and police to bring down crime and stop violence before it starts.”
“If he can successfully militarize LA without significant political consequences, Baltimore is next. Then we’re looking at Chicago. Then we’re looking at D.C.–any city that dares to protect its most vulnerable residents is on his chopping block,” Angela Angel, a senior advisor at Black Lives Matter PAC, recently told theGrio.
In his Sunday Truth Social, Trump also justified his targeting of Democratic-run cities by accusing Democrats of using “illegal aliens” as a “Democratic Power Center” to “expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.”
Despite Trump’s pronouncement, undocumented persons cannot legally vote in federal elections, and there is no evidence of such voter fraud–an issue Trump has for years falsely spread, including in the 2020 election, which he refuses to accept he lost to former President Joe Biden. And while Trump and some Republicans have repeatedly suggested that undocumented residents are straining services, as taxpayers, they actually contribute to social programs. In some cases, they pay more into programs than they benefit from.
Trump’s immigration and economic policies, among others, ignited more than 2,000 “No Kings” rallies across the country on Saturday, which also marked Trump’s 79th birthday. An estimated five million people took to the city streets in opposition to the president’s agenda, which has included an onslaught of anti-DEI and anti-trans policies and threats to rescind federal dollars from private institutions that do not do the same.
“We’re not going to take this rolling over, and we’re going to fight and we’re going to use every tool available to us legally to fight back against what we know is wrong, illegal, what we know is extremism, and what we know will be harmful to the American people,” said Antjuan Seawright, a political strategist who advises top Democrats in Congress.
Seawright told theGrio, “We are not going to allow Trump and Trumpism and the continued rollout of the implementation of Project 2025 to run the day, because the most powerful voice that the [Democratic Party] has is the voice of their actions.” He added, “We’ve seen that play out all across the country by elected officials and others in the community.”
