As we conclude the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, many of us may look back on how his first year has been. The largest part of Trump’s plan as president has been to put more effort into immigration.
During his candidacy in 2024, Trump promised the largest deportation effort in American history, which would require moving military troops to the United States-Mexico border, authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids of workplaces, denying due process to unauthorized migrants, constructing additional ICE detention facilities along the southern border and overturning the Flores settlement, which provides protections for migrant children.
Trump talked about fixing issues with immigration and illegal immigrants, which can be seen after this last year and has garnered large amounts of media and public attention in the United States after Trump issued guidance to ICE on Jan. 20, the first day of his second term, allowing them to enter schools, hospitals and public gatherings to make immigration arrests.
The next day, he allowed ICE to make civil immigration arrests in courthouses. On Jan. 29, Trump signed into law the Laken Riley Act, requiring the detention of immigrants charged with assault of officers or theft.
Two days later, on Feb. 1, a national emergency on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling was cited. A plan to impose 25% tariffs was announced on most imports from Mexico and Canada.
With ICE agents carrying out a series of immigration arrests, many Americans have responded by protesting. The most memorable protest took place in Los Angeles in June, which went so far as to cause President Trump to call in the National Guard.
In L.A., starting June 6, ICE agents carried out a series of immigration arrests across Southern California. Federal agents were reported to be running after people in a Home Depot parking lot in the Westlake neighborhood next to downtown L.A., which circulated in the community.
Later that day, around 3 p.m., crowds began to form. Protesters tried to stop agents in two white passenger vehicles with people handcuffed inside, but were unsuccessful. Hours later, a large group of protesters formed outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and U.S. Courtroom downtown, pressing for ICE to stop the immigration raids in the city.
Protesters showed different forms of peaceful and violent protesting, with local law enforcement firing less-lethal projectiles, flash bangs and tear gas to stop the crowds. Protesters responded by setting cars on fire, blocking major freeways and hurling rocks, Molotov cocktails and other projectiles onto the police, authorities said.
At 10 p.m., the LAPD posted a message on their social media, saying an “unlawful assembly has been declared for the area,” around the downtown federal building and suggested that protestors and others leave the area.
Mayor Bass later denied any ICE raids in Paramount or anywhere in Los Angeles County. She responded, saying the building in Paramount where protesters were gathered was being used as a staging area for federal resources.
That night, around 6 p.m., Trump signed a presidential memorandum allowing the National Guard to be deployed into Los Angeles to protect personnel and federal buildings. Bass immediately objected to the president’s decision, saying it would only raise tensions.
Protesters still assembled at the downtown federal complex throughout the night, throwing fireworks, glass bottles, rocks and other objects at the police, who responded by firing less-lethal projectiles and flash-bangs to disperse protesters.
The National Guard troops arrived around 4 a.m. on June 8, taking position outside the Roybal Federal Building. The deployment marked the first time a president has mobilized a state’s National Guard without a governor’s consent since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent National Guard troops to Alabama to protect civil rights activities marching from Selma to Montgomery.
In response to Trump’s decision, 22 Democratic governors called it “an alarming abuse of power.” Gov. Gavin Newsom also responded by formally requesting that the Trump administration rescind its “unlawful deployment” of National Guard troops.
The LAPD had all personnel remain on duty as the city prepared for another night of protests. Protesters continued to march onto the 101 Freeway, even with officers trying to stop the protesters, which stopped traffic on a portion of the freeway running through downtown.
On June 9, at 12:11 a.m., the LAPD declared all protests in downtown L.A. acts of “unlawful assembly” and ordered people to leave or risk arrest. U.S. military officials confirmed that 700 members of the 7th Marines at Twentynine Palms, California and the 2nd Battalion were being deployed to Los Angeles.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he and Newsom are suing the Trump administration, alleging the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have “trampled over” California’s sovereignty. They claim the officials unlawfully invoked “a law that’s intended to prevent an invasion by a foreign nation or prevent a rebellion or in response to local and state law enforcement, making it so that the law of the United States cannot be executed.”
In a social media post, Newsom said Trump’s actions were “those of a dictator, not a president.”
As L.A. entered its fourth day of protests, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum slammed the U.S. for “criminalizing migration,” saying Mexican immigrants are law-abiding citizens and are needed for the U.S. economy.
At the White House, Trump was asked by a reporter if he would use the Insurrection Act, a U.S. federal law that empowers the president to deploy U.S. military forces, including active-duty troops and federalized National Guard units, within the United States. The act can be used to suppress insurrections or civil disorder or enforce federal laws when ordinary legal means are insufficient, as a response to the protests. Trump responded, “If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We will see.”
Trump called the protesters paid insurrectionists and paid troublemakers without citing supporting evidence.
He also backed up his decision to bring in the National Guard, saying, “If we didn’t get involved right now, Los Angeles would be burning, just like it was burning a couple of months ago with all the houses that were lost,” Trump said, referring to the January wildfires that took over Los Angeles.
Mayor Bass declared a local emergency and imposed an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew in the downtown area at an evening news conference, saying it has become a needed step to stop vandalism and the looting of businesses there. She said the curfew was being imposed in a 1-square-mile area of downtown where the protests and violence occurred.
On Dec. 9, Trump put a permanent pause on Third World migration, which includes Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and other countries. With this new ban in place, around one in five people wanting to immigrate legally to the U.S. are now blocked from doing so, and hundreds of thousands more seeking non-immigrant visas to visit or reside temporarily will now be unable to do so.
Trump claims that this ban is justified by national security concerns about vetting, as well as the disagreements that many of these countries have high visa overstay rates. The Trump administration never made the connection between a total ban on visas, even for children, and national security.
After all Trump has put into effect for immigration, according to the White House Border and Immigration achievements, the number of illegal border crossings at the Darien Gap has dropped more than 99% and the number of unaccompanied alien children arriving at the border has hit a record low under President Trump.
The White House Border and Immigration achievements also said, “The U.S. is on track to see negative net migration for the first time in at least 50 years following President Trump’s historic efforts to end the migrant invasion.”
Since Trump returned to office, ICE has deported around 200,000 illegal aliens, including 47,885 with assault charges or convictions, 16,552 with sexual assault charges or convictions and 2,699 with homicide charges or convictions. Also, 1.6 million illegal aliens have left the country.
Recently many have begun protesting after an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Nicole Good inside her car.
Some protests are happening in Cincinnati. Protesters gathered in Fountain Square on Jan. 8, with people holding signs and waving flags, some expressing disapproval towards ICE and the Trump administration.
Vice President JD Vance responded to the shooting, saying the officer involved in the shooting acted in self-defense.
“What I’m certain of is that she accelerated in a way where she ran into the guy,” Vance said, “I don’t know what was in her heart and what was in her head, but I know that she violated the law and I know that the officer was acting in self-defense.”
The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem agreed with Vance’s statement, saying the shooting was an act of self-defense.
Renee was at least the 15th person fired upon by ICE in President Trump’s second term. The 16th shooting incident happened a day later in Portland, Oregon, by Customs and Border Patrol, two were injured.
Four people have died as a result of the 16 shooting incidents, including Good, at least seven injuries, according to a Get the Facts Data Team analysis of data collected by The Trace.
ICE agents have held people at gunpoint without shooting in another 15 incidents. Fourteen times, ICE agents have fired non-lethal weapons such as tasers, rubber bullets and pepper balls at people.
According to The Trace, these numbers are likely an undercount, as not all shootings are publicly reported.