Discussion: the Trump administration's deportation agenda

TY Mathers · 2025-10-02T21:37:12.569967+00:00

I want to talk about immigration, more specifically the current deportation agenda, as it's a contentious topic under the current administration. I am going to ask some starter questions and see how people feel about some particular points, and we can see where the conversation goes: Is the current administration's deportation agenda justified? Is it a valid action of the government to deport an individual who came in illegally, or overstayed a visa, but has been here for years and has generally been a fine citizen (e.g. no criminal record)? Related question: was illegal immigration as rampant under the Biden admin as the Trump administration claims, or has this been overstated? One of the Trump administration's most criticized actions was to send some deportees to an El Salvadorian prison; their claim (to my understanding) is that these people were gang members whose home country refused to take them back. If this is true, is the action justified? If not what is a more reasonable alternative in this scenario? One of the Trump's administrations main points of emphasis regarding immigration is crime. Did immigration under the Biden administration corresponded to an uptick in crime, and are we seeing this decline under the current deportation agenda? Are we able to show with data that undocumented immigrants commit a disproportional amount of crimes when compared to citizens, or has this been overstated?