The High-Cost Shuffling Game: Trump's Mass Transfer of Immigrants Across America
Prominent Figure Trump Lands lucrative Deals in Moving Immigrants nationwide.
By Leah Nowak
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Hidden Chains: The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has initiated a covert game of relocating migrants between remote detention centers. In these facilities, inmates often find themselves without legal aid or contact with loved ones. This secretive transit system's astronomical cost increases significantly under Trump.
Just days after Donald Trump took office on January 20, he made a bold statement: "We will expel millions of criminal immigrants to their home countries." Later, his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt claimed that 530 migrants were apprehended, and hundreds were deported during the early days of his administration. On Twitter, Leavitt declared a prophecy: "history's greatest mass deportation."
Fast-forward nearly three months, and reliable statistics on actual deportations are scarce. Instead, ICE has been busying itself transferring thousands of individuals across state lines to far-off detention centers.
Migrant transfers between prisons are not new in the U.S., having been a fixture of U.S. immigration policy since the formation of ICE in 2003. However, an analysis by Bloomberg economic portal reveals an unprecedented surge in transfers beginning with Trump's tenure in February 2025. More people were moved between detention centers in that month than in any other month over the past 13 years – almost half of whom had been moved under President Biden's leadership, with just one in four the previous year.
Legal Loopholes ICE upholds its right to transfer detainees under the "Immigration and Nationality Act" (INA), which allows the detention of aliens until deportation proceedings are decided. Possible reasons for these transfers include preventing overcrowding in detention centers, speeding up deportations, or relocating individuals for their own safety. ICE insists that transfers follow extensive documentation and justification rules.
"A Money-Sucking Monster"
Bob Libal, American civil rights activist and strategist at "The Sentencing Project," a Washington D.C.-based non-profit investigating incarcerations in the U.S., denounces these transports as unnecessary expenditures. The detention system, Libal contends, is wasteful at its core – with spiraling costs under the Trump administration.
Funding for these transports comes from taxpayers. According to Bloomberg, the cost for such flights rose by around 29% in the two months following Trump's inauguration to approximately $31 million – an increase due in part to detention centers being erected in secluded locations. As such, transportation to these sites becomes a complex and costly process.
Additionally, the attention paid to detainees, often hidden from the public eye and media scrutiny, is meager. "Out of sight, out of mind," says Libal, pointing to political motivations for obscuring the actual goings-on within these facilities.
Human Rights groups concur with Libal's assessment: The approach is intended to instill fear. Sudden transfers leave people abruptly separated from their support networks, making them highly vulnerable. More than a quarter of those detained by ICE in the South and Southwest are placed over an eight-hour drive from their initial arrest site, leading to reports of inadequate nourishment and restraints during transit.
Legal Minefields Southern ICE detention centers are often situated in remote locations, away from the already scarce supply of immigration lawyers. Bloomberg reports an average of only six lawyers within a 160-kilometer radius of the largest ICE detention centers in the South who specialize in asylum cases. Such geographical limitations, coupled with insufficient funding, leaves many detainees with limited legal options.
Libal, who has been studying the U.S. deportation system for over 20 years, emphasizes the importance of understanding individual cases. "As long as migrants remain just faceless numbers, the system remains protected," Libal says in the ntv "Wieder was gelernt" podcast. Making these stories known could sway public opinion against systematic deportations.
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Keywords:Migrants, Inequality, Donald Trump, Immigration policy USA
- The streak of increasing migrant transfers under President Trump's administration is not merely a matter of immigration policy, but also a significant issue in political discussions due to its massive financial implications, often referred to as a "Money-Sucking Monster" by critics.
- The community policy surrounding the treatment of migrants in detention facilities raises concerns for human rights groups, as they argue that the covert and sudden transfers, often without legal aid or contact with loved ones, are intended to instill fear and leave migrants highly vulnerable, thus undermining their human rights.
