The American immigration police, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), have been under fire for several weeks. The (radical) left-wing opposition in the US, slavishly followed by the woke mainstream media in Europe, is doing everything it can to portray ICE as Donald Trump's private militia. The deaths of two left-wing anti-ICE activists earlier this month provided a catalyst for criticising their resolute anti-illegal policies. The reason for this is apparent: remigration has long been taboo, but ICE’s strategy works.

By Filip Dewinter
The US immigration agency ICE demonstrates that actively tracking down, arresting, and deporting undocumented immigrants and criminal aliens is not impossible. Naturally, there is considerable protest, but in the meantime, ICE is doing what it must: forcibly repatriating undocumented immigrants and criminal immigrants to their countries of origin.

ICE: Active for 24 Years
ICE is wrongly portrayed as a kind of modern-day Gestapo led by bogeyman Donald Trump. The reality is different... ICE was established 24 years ago by Republican President George W. Bush after the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks. In 2002, he signed the Homeland Security Act, which, among other things, led to the creation of ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

In addition to the Border Patrol (US Customs and Border Protection) that monitors the American borders, a police service was also established through ICE to tackle the domestic problem of more than 10 million illegal immigrants ('Unauthorised immigrants' - source 'Homeland Security - 'Population Estimates').

Obama: ‘Deporter-in-chief’
ICE has nearly 7,000 agents on the ground who combat illegal immigration. In addition, there are 15,000 employees spread across some forty offices who carry out administrative investigative work. The fact that ICE is not exclusively a plaything of right-wing Republicans is proven by the fact that more than 3 million undocumented immigrants were deported in eight years under Democratic President Barack Obama.

Obama was even called the "deporter-in-chief" by his opponents. Obama's Democratic successor, President Joe Biden, deported nearly 1.5 million "undocumented immigrants" via ICE. Trump fared little better during his first term: "only" 1.5 million undocumented immigrants, roughly the same number as Biden, were returned.

At the start of his second term, Trump promised an active fight against undocumented immigrants. He openly spoke of "deportations" and "repatriation." The number of ICE agents was increased from just over 6,500 to 10,000, ICE agents were given more powers, and their budget increased from nearly $10 billion to just under $40 billion. With an additional $30 billion over four years, ICE's annual budget now stands at $9 billion.

New closed detention centres were also added, providing an additional 10,000 places. ICE now has an annual budget equivalent to Israel's entire defence budget. Success was therefore inevitable. After just one year, ICE had already deported more than 600,000 undocumented immigrants.

Approximately 100,000 undocumented immigrants are in closed detention centres awaiting repatriation. For the record, the United States currently has approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants. (Migration Policy Institute - MPI)

"Self-Deportation": Voluntary return through deterrence
The deterrent effect of a decisive anti-illegal immigration policy has been evident: since ICE took decisive action, over 2 million undocumented immigrants spontaneously left the USA in just one year. Significantly, more than a quarter of all undocumented immigrants arrested and deported are criminals with criminal records.

The fact that they are sent back to prisons in El Salvador and Colombia, where drug mafia members are locked up and treated harshly, causes many to leave the USA themselves out of fear.

Besides the deterrent effect, various programs have also been launched to encourage undocumented immigrants to return voluntarily. Through programs like "Project Homecoming," undocumented immigrants receive up to $1,000 per person, a plane ticket, and various administrative and other facilities if they decide to return. By proactively intervening, the government can make repatriation a positive process rather than merely a repressive one.

Remigration: The key to every successful immigration policy
A strict policy on undocumented immigrants, with remigration as the main instrument for solving the ever-growing problem of undocumented immigrants, is the key to every successful immigration policy. The constant flow of undocumented immigrants undermines every attempt to integrate foreigners and creates an immense security problem.

Undocumented immigrants pay no taxes, social security contributions, fees, or anything else. They create no added value, yet they cost a lot of money through education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The presence of a large group of illegal immigrants in the labour market also creates an undeclared work circuit with unfair competition, which harms legal employees and workers.

Finally, let's not forget that undocumented immigrants are the best accomplices of the drug mafia, criminal gangs, and the underground (criminal) economy. In short, they disrupt our society, pose a security problem, and create the justified impression of impunity and chaos.

The undocumented population is growing year after year. According to the Pew Research Centre, Europe already had 3.9 to 4.8 million undocumented aliens at the end of 2017. That number grows by more than 2 million annually. In 2023, 1.3 million undocumented aliens were found in EU countries, while only a small percentage were actually repatriated. A large number returned to hiding, while others were regularised.

In Belgium, for example, a total of 28,331 cases of undocumented residence were recorded in 2023. Only 3,383 were forcibly returned, and 3,107 returned voluntarily. All the rest continued living illegally in Belgium.

Track them down, arrest them, and send them back to their country of origin!
The only alternative to the current policy of tolerance in Europe is obvious: Track down, arrest, and send them back to their country of origin.

Trump's policy proves that it is possible. A remigration policy for undocumented and criminal aliens is also possible in Europe. One of the most critical conditions for an effective return policy for undocumented immigrants is that the countries of origin actually admit and accommodate their "fellow citizens."

One way is to pressure these countries through the numerous subsidies and facilities they receive from Europe. Another is to guarantee the repatriation of those with a return order. This can be achieved by placing every undocumented immigrant with a return order in a closed reception centre on a detention island in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean Sea contains dozens of islands suitable for temporarily housing deported undocumented immigrants pending their repatriation. The certainty that deported undocumented immigrants will end up in a detention centre, as in the USA, and cannot disappear back into the wild, will undoubtedly create an additional deterrent effect. Undocumentedness must not and cannot be tolerated.

Regularising undocumented immigrants, tolerating undocumented immigrants, and allowing all sorts of exceptions to deportation (illness, children, marriage, etc.) ensures that undocumented residency is worthwhile. An efficient policy on undocumented immigrants can never be gentle or compassionate, because that would open the floodgates wide to even more undocumented immigrants. Track down, arrest and send the message!