The killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good on the streets of Minneapolis exposed a strategic failure in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Although sometimes necessary, public apprehensions are messy, politically radioactive, and prone to error. That’s why Trump border czar Tom Homan has stepped in to order Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pull back, withdrawing 700 federal law enforcement personnel from Minneapolis.
With Democrats trying to hem in ICE nationwide, how can Trump deliver on his promises on illegal immigration?
There is another path — one that deports millions without street arrests, protests, or riots. It relies on leverage and paperwork. And it sits squarely within the authority of the current administration.
The numbers show the current strategy is not working. In Trump’s first year, federal agencies arrested and deported roughly 230,000 people from inside the United States. Another 270,000 were turned away at the border, and about 70,000 remain in ICE custody. On net, that amounts to less than 2% of the estimated 14 million people living in the country illegally when Trump took office.
Even with interior removals now running roughly three times higher than during Trump’s first term, the totals only match levels reached under George W. Bush’s final years and Barack Obama’s first term, despite there being millions more unlawful residents today.
If ICE were targeting only hardened criminals and gang members, the political backlash would be marginal. Instead, data show that between 30% and 50% of recent ICE arrestees have no criminal convictions or pending charges, even though officials say nearly half a million illegal immigrants with convictions are already eligible for deportation. High-intensity street enforcement guarantees that sympathetic cases — longtime residents, productive workers, and even U.S. citizens — will be swept in. Each case chips away at the White House’s credibility.
The political damage is real. Immigration was Trump’s strongest issue through most of his first year, with broad majorities favoring the deportation of all illegal immigrants, with 98% demanding the removal of violent criminal aliens. After Minneapolis, polls show the president underwater, his success at sealing the border overshadowed by images of chaos on American streets.
Trump understands leverage. He won elections by negotiating from strength, not by doubling down on tactics that alienate swing voters. That instinct offers a way out.
The first step is a goodwill gesture: scale back street-level arrests and abandon talk of nationalizing the National Guard in major cities. But that carrot should be paired with sticks the executive branch already possesses: federal monies and friendly judges.
During Trump’s first term, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to withhold Justice Department grants from sanctuary jurisdictions that refused to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Because local agencies rely heavily on federal and pass-through funds, the pressure was real. The strategy failed not on the merits but in court, blocked repeatedly by hostile judges issuing nationwide injunctions.
That landscape has changed. Trump has reshaped the judiciary, and a recent Supreme Court decision curtailed the ability of district judges to freeze federal policy nationwide. With the courts less likely to intervene reflexively, the administration can revive the Sessions approach— this time with teeth.
Billions of dollars flow to sanctuary jurisdictions through the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and Human Services, including programs that directly or indirectly benefit illegal immigration. Turning off that spigot would force state and local officials to negotiate or explain to voters why taxes must rise or services be cut. In exchange for restored funding, the administration can demand cooperation at jails and prisons, data sharing, and real eligibility checks for federally funded programs. Those demands are popular, commonsense measures to protect public safety and taxpayers.
Critically, the White House could also induce state and local authorities to both cooperate and participate in criminal alien apprehensions and transfers, with local police resources, including manpower and intelligence, acting as a force multiplier to arrest the “worst of the worst.” In blue states, where authorities largely do not cooperate, 70% of ICE arrests take place in public, while 59% of red state apprehensions took place in prisons and jails in the first half of 2025.
The administration should also attack the problem that makes illegal residence possible in the first place: identity fraud. Government data shows that more than two million fictitious, unassigned Social Security numbers are used for employment. Another government analysis identified 2.9 million valid numbers tied to the dead, the very elderly, children, or individuals holding three or more jobs in a single quarter.
Using fake Social Security documents is a federal felony, often carrying penalties of up to five years in prison and rendering offenders ineligible for reentry after deportation. Prosecuting millions of individuals is unrealistic. Prosecuting employers is not. A targeted campaign of criminal and civil penalties against willfully ignorant or complicit employers — just a few dozen high-profile cases — would collapse demand for illegal labor far faster than public sweeps ever could.
The same logic applies to benefits. States administering Medicaid should be required to properly verify eligibility or share data for federal audits. Many do neither.
Cut off access to work, welfare, and fraudulent identification, and the incentive to remain illegally evaporates. Self-deportations would rise into the millions, not the paltry 40,000 who have used the government’s app and accepted a one-time cash payment to leave.
RENTS FALL AS TRUMP’S DEPORTATIONS RISE
While the White House has taken half-steps on some of these measures, the paperwork approach has taken a back seat to ICE’s shock-and-awe tactics.
The war on illegal immigration will not be won in the streets. It will be won at negotiating tables and behind bureaucrats’ desks — quietly, peacefully, and effectively.
Sean Kennedy is the president of Virginians for Safe Communities, a non-profit public safety advocacy group, and a member of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Criminal Justice Advisory Board.