I pulled into a dimly lit Sunoco gas station parking lot on South Dakota Avenue in northeast Washington, D.C., just before 5 a.m. on a recent Thursday. Two Dodge Chargers idled side by side in the lot, their headlights illuminating a steady drizzle of cold rain.
These were government vehicles, and more soon arrived, all carrying law-enforcement agents whose mission is one of the most challenging parts of President Donald Trump’s goal: to deport one million illegal immigrants by the end of this year.
There are roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in America, though the estimates vary widely. The total grew by 630,000 in the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency. Estimates for 2023 and 2024 haven’t been released by the federal government, but because the number of illegal border crossings has plummeted since Trump took office, the only way to deport large numbers of illegal immigrants is to find them in cities and towns throughout the United States.
The question is how to actually carry that out.