Trump Administration's Aggressive Deportation Tactics: Threats of Family Separation and Criminal Prosecution Force Migrants to Abandon Legal Claims

White House border czar Tom Homan has defended the Trump administration's aggressive deportation tactics as lawful measures.

Washington:

Colombian nationals Kelly and Yerson Vargas faced a devastating ultimatum from a US immigration officer: accept deportation or risk criminal charges and separation from their 6-year-old daughter Maria Paola.

Despite having submitted human trafficking visa applications based on forced labor experiences and death threats from cartel members in Mexico during their journey to the US, the family was pressured to abandon their legal claims. The immigration officer's October 31 email threatened prosecution for non-compliance with their deportation order—a charge carrying up to 10 years imprisonment.

Their experience exemplifies the Trump administration's intensified immigration enforcement strategy, which increasingly employs family separation threats and other aggressive tactics to accelerate deportations—even for those with pending legal claims that would have previously allowed them to remain in the country while cases were processed, according to documentation reviewed by Reuters and accounts from immigrants, attorneys, and officials.

These enforcement methods include threats of criminal prosecution for deportation resistance or illegal border crossing—offenses rarely prosecuted before but now carrying family separation consequences—along with extended detention without release options and deportation to unfamiliar third countries.

Reuters interviewed 16 immigration attorneys representing hundreds of clients collectively, who confirmed the administration's escalating use of severe tactics to force deportation acceptance.

Tom Homan, White House border czar, defended these practices in an interview: "We're using every tool in the toolbox. Everything we're doing is legal."

The Vargas family ultimately abandoned their visa applications and accepted deportation in November, fearing family separation that would place their daughter in federal shelters for unaccompanied migrant children.

"I was afraid that they would put me in jail and carry out all the threats they made," Kelly Vargas explained.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated the family had received a deportation order in 2024, lost on appeal, and received full due process. She did not address their human trafficking visa application.

McLaughlin rejected characterizations of "threats" by ICE officers, stating they appropriately informed immigrants of potential federal charges: "These illegal aliens broke the law and were warned they would face the consequences for their crimes."

Critics argue that individuals with legitimate claims to remain in the United States are casualties of the administration's ambitious deportation targets. Though aiming to deport 1 million people annually, the administration has reported just over 605,000 deportations since taking office—projecting fewer than 700,000 by year's end.

Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, which represented the Vargas family, condemned what she called "calculated cruelty" forcing deportation choices.

"My detained clients from New Jersey to Texas report crowded, inhumane, and degrading detention conditions, some of which are so unbearable that they are giving up on their immigration cases," she said.

The Trump administration has dramatically increased immigrant detention, with ICE detention population growing approximately 70% since January to nearly 66,000 individuals by November 2025.

ICE revised its policy in July to argue virtually all detained immigrants were ineligible for bond release. Though a federal judge in California blocked this interpretation in November, numerous immigrants had already abandoned their legal claims after facing prospects of months or years in detention while their cases proceeded through backlogged courts.

Those who surrendered their cases included a Guatemalan farmworker separated from her husband and son in Florida after a workplace raid, a Venezuelan landscaper from Texas, an Ecuadorean construction worker in New York, a Mexican social worker in Alabama, and a Honduran nursing student in North Carolina.

The administration has also deported hundreds to unfamiliar third countries—a rarely used tactic previously—with some abandoning their cases when threatened with deportation to nations where imprisonment was possible.

Brazilian national Lourival Paulo da Silva, a US resident for over two decades with an American citizen spouse, was detained by immigration agents in Florida in September while working through the lengthy process of legalizing his status after entering illegally.

Following weeks in detention facilities, including the remote Florida Everglades facility nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" where he contracted tuberculosis, da Silva chose voluntary departure on October 10. His stepdaughter Karina Botts reported he struggles in Brazil but hopes his spousal immigrant visa will be approved next year.

Data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows court-approved voluntary departures have increased more than fivefold to 16,000 in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period under President Biden—not including those who abandoned cases and received deportation orders.

Hector Grillo, a 31-year-old Venezuelan detained in Texas before being deported, requested return to Venezuela fearing imprisonment in El Salvador. "That was the fastest way to get out of that torture," Grillo explained.