There has always been an element of fundamental duplicity in the second Trump administration’s mass-deportation program. In promoting it during the 2024 presidential campaign, and often since then, the president claimed he and his masked agents were focused on finding, arresting, and supporting the “worst of the worst,” or the “Hundreds of Thousands of Convicted Murderers, Rapists, Kidnappers, Drug Dealers, and Terrorists,” as he put it in one Truth Social post earlier this year.

That claim is important, because polls have consistently shown that a carefully targeted approach to deporting undocumented immigrants has strong majority support. A Fox News poll in July of 2025, for example, found that only 29 percent of Americans wanted to “deport all illegal immigrants.” Eleven percent wanted to “allow all immigrants to stay,” which is consistent, by the way, with a crackdown on new border crossings. But an overwhelming 59 percent wanted to “deport only those illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes but allow others to remain in the U.S. and eventually qualify for citizenship.” Clearly, people involved in immigration policy are aware of this rather fundamental distinction. Border czar and de facto deportation overseer Tom Homan said so in February of this year:

“I think the vast majority of the American people think criminal illegal aliens need to leave,” Homan told author Julia Ainsley, reported by NBC News on Monday. “And if we stick to that prioritization, I think we keep the faith of the American people.”

“I think the vast majority of the American people think criminal illegal aliens need to leave,” Homan told author Julia Ainsley, reported by NBC News on Monday. “And if we stick to that prioritization, I think we keep the faith of the American people.”

It’s been clear for a good while that this “prioritization” has been a myth. The Associated Press pointed........

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