Trump Demands A Blank Check to Outdo Eisenhower’s Mass Deportation “Record”
5 MARCH 2025
Glorifying one of the darkest stains in U.S. history, Trump made his plan clear: more raids, more family separation, more suffering—no matter the cost to families, communities, or democracy itself.
Washington, D.C. – Last night, President Trump stood before Congress to defend the havoc he’s already wreaked on the immigration system and celebrated Eisenhower’s 1954 mass deportation campaign as a “record” to break. Then, he demanded $350 billion to fund the effort, soliciting a blank check to continue militarizing communities, separating families, and upending economies at the cost of working families.
Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback was a shameful stain on American history that saw over a million people ripped from their families and communities, caged workers in inhumane conditions, and abandoned thousands in deadly desert terrain. Trump’s agenda would revive the humanitarian disaster while gutting vital resources like healthcare, food assistance, and even disaster relief from communities across the nation.
Statement from Beatriz Lopez, Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub:
“Trump stood before the American people and promised to supersize the most despicable mass deportation campaign in U.S. history, calling Eisenhower a “record holder”—as if ripping families apart, caging essential workers, and leaving people to die in the desert is a gold-medal achievement. Now, he is asking Congress to fund a modern-day Operation Wetback—a mass deportation scheme of unprecedented scale that will gut local economies, devastate families, and leave entire communities in ruins.
With $350 billion, he will build the largest deportation force in history, turbocharging ICE raids, military detention camps, and indiscriminate sweeps in neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and workplaces. He is turning his war on immigrants into a war on democracy itself—stripping protections, criminalizing compassion, and transforming America into a surveillance state where entire communities live in fear.
Congress cannot give him the blank check he’s demanding. This is no longer a warning. It’s happening now.”
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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.
