‘Worst of the Worst’ or Mass Deportation?

Mark Krikorian; Andrew R. Arthur; Matt O'Brien

By Mark Krikorian, Andrew R. Arthur, and Matt O'Brien on October 1, 2026

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Summary

“This is probably the most secure border we’ve had in the United States since the 19th century.” That’s the verdict of Andrew “Art” Arthur, a Center for Immigration Studies scholar and one of two guests on this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy.

But with the border secure, what progress is the Trump DHS making in removing the illegal aliens already here, millions of them intentionally let in under the Biden administration? Is ICE engaging in the “mass deportation” that candidate Trump had promised, or are agents focused mainly on arresting the “worst of the worst”, as President Trump has repeatedly said.

That’s the question Arthur and fellow panelist Matt O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), address in this episode, which is a session from a recent invitation-only CIS event. Both speakers are veterans of immigration policymaking and enforcement, including as immigration judges.

Arthur points out that in the mid-1980s, the average immigration agent arrested 500 aliens per year. “If ICE were going at that level right now,” Arthur said, “we would have 3 million interior arrests – we’re not anywhere close to that.” Arthur said the explanation is today’s relative lack of worksite immigration enforcement: “If we can’t agree on worksite enforcement, you’re never actually going to have a mass deportation program.”

O’Brien rejected the framing of “mass deportation”, noting that “We’re not engaging in ‘mass deportation’, we’re simply enforcing the provisions of the INA (the Immigration and Nationality Act).” He continued, “We need to move off of this false dichotomy between ‘worst of the worst’ and ‘mass deportation’ . . . and then allow ICE to get on with its duties, just like we do every other law enforcement agency in the United States.”

In explaining why ICE hasn’t been more forthcoming in releasing deportation statistics, Arthur suggested, “I think a lot of this stems from the time Kristi Noem was [DHS] secretary, because they were making all kinds of statements, and any statistic that they put out today is probably going to undermine that.”

O’Brien had a different take, explaining that “everyone from the postal inspector to the Bureau of Land Management” have been tasked with making immigration arrests, and the data has not been collected centrally: “I don’t think anyone put any thought prior to making these arrests into any kind of centralized data capture.”

In his closing remarks, host Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, drew attention to a recent analysis by Arthur of a report by the House Judiciary Committee on the sanctuary policies of Arlington County, Va., across the Potomac from the nation’s capital.