We have, I think, the first important action targeting immigrants in the interior, not at the border. President Trump now has a policy of indiscriminate deportation.

What Trump has done is revoke a Biden policy that said ICE should prioritize people with criminal convictions for deportation. Basically, Trump did the OPPOSITE of what his rhetoric about targeting “criminal aliens” would suggest. This was predictable; he did this in his first term also (repealing a similar Obama policy). In 2017 Trump replaced it with a new order that basically said all undocumented immigrants are targets by rejecting the idea of prioritization.

For now, by rescinding the Biden policy, he has left a vacuum. Trump may fill that with his own policy soon, as he did in 2017. But I would expect the no-priorities, indiscriminate deportation policy to stay, more or less, though your mileage may vary with actual ICE arrests.

Though predictable, there’s been a lot of mixed messaging from Trump allies and Trump himself about who he would deport. Sometimes it’s deport them all, sometimes it’s deport just the criminals. This seemed to work politically. Some people who voted for him could convince themselves he would only go after the “criminals.” Now we have concrete action: Trump is rejecting the prioritization of people with criminal records. When no one is a priority, everyone is a potential target.

Let’s be clear. While consistent with mass deportation, this does not order mass deportation because there’s nothing “massive” about it. This doesn’t increase the numbers.

An interesting complication is the Laken Riley Act, which just passed the Senate. That mandates ICE to detain immigrants merely accused of shoplifting and other theft offenses. That may effectively impose enforcement priorities on ICE, in an illogical way. It would make people arrested for shoplifting a higher priority for ICE than people actually convicted of robbery or sexual assault. Makes no sense. But that’s what happens when members of Congress care more about political positioning than workable policy.