We have reached the first anniversary of the second Trump administration, and it is time to assess the results of its first year.

The poster child of his second term has been immigration policy and border control. This theme worked well in his first term, which was marked by the construction of a border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for. In his second term, he played the same card, promising “mass deportations.” The idea of bringing order to the immigration process has long been overdue and found resonance with many American voters. As a sovereign nation, the United States has the right to manage the influx of people into the country and decide who is eligible to live and work here.

President Trump deployed and reinforced additional Border Patrol agents, and illegal border crossings have fallen sharply to historically low levels. In fiscal year 2025, unauthorized migrant encounters at the U.S.–Mexico border dropped to about 444,000, down from roughly 2.1 million the previous year, a decline driven largely by stricter border controls and asylum restrictions. The formation of migrant caravans has completely ceased.

The second promise—mass deportation—was problematic on both theoretical and practical levels and functioned largely as a rally slogan. Not all illegal immigrants are subject to immediate deportation. Some exploited the system by requesting asylum as soon as they stepped on American soil. After making such a request, they became subjects of a special judicial process, and ICE was required to wait for court decisions, even though immigration courts operate under the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch. As of early 2026, the immigration court backlog stood at approximately 3.7 million cases.

Individuals awaiting due process cannot be subjected to forcible removal. Nevertheless, the Trump Administration attempted to accelerate the removal of people whose cases were still under consideration, and it immediately faced legal challenges. Instead of acknowledging errors and adjusting course, it insisted on its authority until it suffered losses at multiple judicial levels, including the Supreme Court.

The administration’s focus on interior enforcement initially emphasized targeting criminal gangs and serious offenders. This was a sound idea, as such ethnic criminal groups terrorize neighborhoods composed of both illegal and legal immigrants. Success in dismantling these organizations would have increased security and living standards for everyone and delivered a major political benefit to the administration. However, ICE quickly shifted toward targeting individuals near Home Depot, Target, and other informal labor markets where illegal immigrants seek employment. People attempting to find work are not commonly perceived as criminals. This was a poor tactical decision that created troubling optics.

ICE raids and arrests have swept up many individuals without criminal records, raising concerns among immigrant communities. Public opinion reflects growing polarization. Surveys show that a majority of Americans say the administration is doing “too much” to deport immigrants who are in the United States illegally, and nearly half of Hispanic Republicans express discomfort with the current enforcement intensity.

At the end of the day, what are the results? The Trump Administration has significantly tightened immigration enforcement and reduced illegal border crossings. However, according to post-shutdown data from TRAC Immigration, the administration removed only about 7 percent more individuals than were removed in FY 2024, the final full year of the Biden Administration. And this has been achieved despite a significant increase in resources and personnel devoted to immigration enforcement. The political price Republicans will be paying far outweighs the results achieved. The outcome is mediocre, and at the same time, politically damaging. Thus, the immigration policy deserves two marks – an A for border control and a C-for the deportation effort.

As soon as I heard the phrase “E-mail five items you have accomplished today,” I realized that DOGE would likely be a bust. My suspicions only deepened when reports emerged that young technocrats had discovered erroneous dates in databases and interpreted them as evidence that people over 120 years old were still receiving Social Security checks. In reality, such incorrect dates are a well-known issue arising from decades in which dates were stored in alphanumeric fields using inconsistent presentations, and were later converted into stricter database date formats. Welcome to the real world, kids!

On a more serious note, DOGE did force, or at least accelerate, personnel reorganization across parts of the federal bureaucracy. The question, however, is whether that acceleration delivered any meaningful results. A leaner government should be reflected not only in headcounts but also in spending. Yet federal expenditures during the first three quarters of the second Trump Administration continued to rise steadily, despite DOGE’s stated mission to curb waste. If spending........

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