Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Tracking Mass Deportation by the Numbers, Not Smoke and Mirrors

Border Patrol in Texas
"Our communities fear that the police and deportation agents are one and the same," the authors write.
John Moore/Getty Images

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

The not-so-ethereal Wizard infamously demands this in the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming and based on the 1900 novel by Frank Baum.


In this climactic cinema moment, Dorothy and her companions realize that the Wizard is not all that he seems when, despite the smoke, mirrors, giant floating green head, and pyrotechnics, Toto pulls back the green curtain with his teeth to expose a very regular human at a complex switchboard of gadgets.

Recently, this spectacle seems familiar.

Following promises of mass deportations of illegal immigrants by Immigration & Customs Enforcement, the White House apparently is flooding social media platforms with disinformation.

Recent media reports that the U.S. government has been falsely creating the appearance of current enhanced immigration enforcement with thousands of archived press releases about ICE arrests --some decades old-- were given new time stamps: January 24, 2025.

This algorithmic funny business sends them to the top of browsers when people Google “ICE raids,” leading to terror and disinformation in immigrant communities.

As a political scientist teaching a university course on U.S.-Mexico Border Politics, I understand that historically and currently, most efforts to “control” migration have contained elements of illusion and statistical sleight of hand.

The truth can still be illuminated by studying history, exploring non-partisan sources of data and facts, double-checking information, and refusing to spread disinformation and fear.

During the campaign for “Mexican Repatriation” during the Great Depression in the 1930s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, due to economic desperation in the U.S., strong anti-Mexican sentiment existed among many Americans. Added to the labor needs in Mexico, the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to a pressure campaign to “return” Mexicans living in the U.S. to Mexico.

While the U.S. government estimated the number of Mexicans removed to be in the millions and touted this number in the media, University of California-Los Angeles historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez argues the number is more accurately around 400,000 people. This means the vast majority of Mexicans resisted removal despite enormous pressure.

Decades later, “Operation Wetback” in 1954 (the official title itself a slur against Mexicans) was a mass deportation effort after the end of World War II when returning U.S. GIs created less of a demand for labor to sustain the U.S. food chain.

The U.S. government claimed to have removed over a million unauthorized Mexican workers. However, Hernandez estimates that the number was closer to 300,000. She observes that after the U.S. government declared the operation a success, they changed tactics by reducing border enforcers to two-man patrols to demonstrate a precipitous drop in apprehensions.

The numbers the U.S. government keeps about immigration enforcement in more recent decades reveal numbers that do not comport with the “invasion” narrative. Considering that some people cross the U.S.-Mexico border to move to Mexico, there was net zero immigration between the U.S. and Mexico between 2005-2010, and around 130,000 Mexican nationals living in the U.S. between 2009-2014, according to Pew Research Center.

Claiming “border chaos” does not always correspond with a chaotic border. When President Donald Trump first took office in 2017 after running on an explicitly anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant message, unauthorized border crossings were at a low point. Some argued this was precisely because of Trump’s tough rhetoric, but 2017 also appears to be part of a two-decade trend.

Reliable data are available, but they require attention to detail. In a thorough video breakdown, USA Facts describes how Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) collects and shares data related to authorized and unauthorized annual immigration.

“Unauthorized immigrants,” according to the government, include those who crossed into the U.S. illegally and were apprehended, visa overstayers but also people seeking asylum, those pre-approved for temporary protective status due to humanitarian crises, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.

A portion of those in the “unauthorized” category have been or are being processed for legal residence --at least temporarily. Due to large refugee and asylum flows from places like Ukraine and Venezuela, people from places other than Mexico were the majority of unauthorized immigrants for many years over the last decade. Additionally, families traveling together tripled between 2020 and 2024.

Certainly, the problem is not just rhetorical disinformation. These tactics harm real people. Historically and today, the demand for foreign labor and the intense push factors that lead people to make the difficult decision to leave their homeland reproduce a situation of a large population living in the shadows without documentation or authorization.

Unauthorized immigrants are subject to unlivable wages, exploitation, blackmail, crime victimization, and poor health and safety. Deportation efforts, including workplace raids or neighborhood sweeps by ICE, terrorize immigrant communities. A Pew Research Center survey from 2022 shows that almost 40% percent of U.S. Latinos said they were worried a family member would be deported.

Detainees and deportees continue to face dehumanizing conditions at the hands of the state. Deportations crush dreams and tear families apart. Still, past efforts at mass deportation have never successfully removed this population. Despite many changes to policy, the Department of Homeland Security estimates of the total unauthorized immigrant population have remained flat since 2010.

While it is not possible for everyone to take a 15-week college course on U.S. immigration policy, it is advisable to seek primary and non-partisan sources of data, research immigration history, and double-check information before sharing it on social media to help anyone be better informed about immigration realities.

For those who are understandably scared, it is important for them to know their rights and learn the lessons of history. Everyone needs to resist the sensationalism of immigration optics and pay attention to the truth, not the man behind the curtain.

Isabel Skinner is an assistant professor in the School of Politics and International Affairs at the University of Illinois Springfield and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.


Read More

Kids' Healthcare Can't Withstand Medicaid Cuts

The risk to children’s hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid funding, is often unrecognized. Children’s health needs greater investment, not less.

Getty Images, FS Productions

Kids' Healthcare Can't Withstand Medicaid Cuts

Last year, my daughter’s elementary school science teacher surprised me with a midday phone call. During a nature center field trip, my eight year old fell off a balance beam and seriously hurt her arm. I picked my daughter up and drove straight to the children’s hospital, where I knew she would get everything she needed. Hours later, we were headed home, injury addressed, pain controlled, appropriate follow-up secured, and her arm in a cast after x-rays revealed fractures across both forearm bones.

That children’s hospital, part of a regional academic medical center, is thirty minutes away from our home. Its proximity assures me that we have access to everything my kids could possibly need medically. Until this year, I took this access for granted. Now, as the structure of the classroom yields to summer’s longer, more freeform days, some of the nation’s most important programs scaffolding kids’ health could collapse under the pressure imposed by proposed legislative budget cuts. As a pediatric doctor and as a parent, slashing Medicaid concerns me the most.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine discusses the mission details of a strike on Iran during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 22, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

In his televised address to the nation Saturday night regarding the U.S. strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump declared that the attacks targeted “the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” He framed the operation as a necessary response to decades of Iranian aggression, citing past attacks on U.S. personnel and Tehran’s support for militant proxies.

While those justifications were likely key drivers, the decision to intervene was also shaped by a complex interplay of political strategy, alliance dynamics, and considerations of personal legacy.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support
person wearing lavatory gown with green stethoscope on neck using phone while standing

The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support

WASHINGTON–In March 2020, Stephanie Hendrick, a retired teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, contracted COVID-19, a virus that over 110 million people in the U.S. would contract over the next couple of years.

She recovered from the initial illness, but like many, she soon began experiencing long COVID symptoms. In the early months of the pandemic, hospitals and medical centers prioritized care for individuals with active COVID-19 infections, and pandemic restrictions limited travel and in-person treatment for other medical conditions. Hendrick’s options for care for long COVID were limited.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Need Critical Transformational Leaders Now More Than Ever

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) listens at a news conference following the weekly Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on June 17, 2025, in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

We Need Critical Transformational Leaders Now More Than Ever

The image of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla—handcuffed and dragged away while advocating for immigrant rights—is more than symbolic. It’s a chilling reminder that in America today, even the highest-ranking Latino officials are not immune from the forces of erasure. This moment, along with ICE raids in Los Angeles, an assault on DEI in education, and the Tennessee Attorney General’s lawsuit seeking to dismantle funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), signals a coordinated assault on Latino dignity, equity, and belonging. These are not isolated events. They are part of a broader backlash against racial justice, driven by white supremacy and an entrenched fear of demographic and cultural change.

As a scholar of race, leadership, and equity in higher education, I know this moment calls for something deeper than mere outrage. It calls for action. We need what I call Critical Transformational Leaders—individuals who act with moral courage, who center justice over comfort, and who are unafraid to challenge systemic racism from positions both high and humble.

Keep ReadingShow less