The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety—while reducing government costs—by facilitating prompt immigration determinations. In particular, the full application of expedited removal authority will enable DHS to address more effectively and efficiently the large volume of aliens who are present in the United States unlawfully, without having been admitted or paroled into the United States, and ensure the prompt removal from the United States of those not entitled to enter, remain, or be provided relief or protection from removal.

Statistical data and other information compiled in the American Immigration Council's July 23, 2025 report, Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America, indicate both claims are likely false, and that the expansion of the expedited removal policy probably will have the opposite effect. As the WAPO article linked above states:

The American Immigration Council’s report Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget And Economy estimated that it costs an average of $6,653 to arrest someone “at large” in the community. Per the estimates, just transporting a person from the site of an arrest to the nearest ICE office costs an additional $3,745.

These costs represent just the beginning of the resources needed to carry out a large-scale deportation effort (removing one million people per year would cost $88 billion annually). And engaging in mass deportation over a short period of time would require somewhere between 220,000 and 409,000 new government employees and law enforcement officers.

....Other federal law enforcement agencies are forced to divert large numbers of agents away from their normal law enforcement tasks to carry out immigration raids. At least 25 percent of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) 10,000-person workforce as of late March was diverted to immigration enforcement. DEA agents have been directed to identify old cases involving undocumented immigrants—even where prosecutors declined to bring charges due to a lack of evidence—and to target those people for arrest. (my emphasis)

As of late March, Reuters reported that up to 80 percent of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents—as many as 2,200—had been reassigned to immigration enforcement. The administration also directed the Internal Revenue Service to divert an unknown number of criminal investigation agents, whose expertise lies in investigating tax evaders and perpetrators of financial crimes, to immigration enforcement. Even the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force confirmed that their agents were taken off their normal duties related to disrupting terrorist threats to instead identify and arrest noncitizens.

From the report itself:

....Arguably, these diversions make Americans significantly less safe—or at the very least put the U.S. government in the position of abandoning traditional and core public safety challenges to prioritize immigration arrests, mostly of people who pose no threat and make invaluable contributions to the country.

For example, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the criminal investigative arm of ICE charged with investigating serious drug trafficking schemes and child and human trafficking, is instead enforcing low-level immigration offenses. Former HSI agents warned in February that these shift would force agents to abandon cases involving “child exploitation crimes, cyberattacks and Dark Web financial schemes, Iranian and Chinese nuclear traffickers, Russian organized crime, trade fraud and sanctions investigations.”

In March, reporting from Reuters confirmed that “scores of agents who specialize in child sexual exploitation have been reassigned to immigration enforcement,” including menial duties such as “surveillance outside of immigrant workers’ homes, taking down license plates and distributing photos of ‘target’ immigrants to detain.”

I highly recommend bookmarking the report for reading when you have time. It's a clear, well-organized assessment of the first 6 months of Trump II's immigration changes. The parts about the number of U.S. citizens and others with lawful presence or awaiting action on their petitions who have been arrested is eye-opening. No one seems to be running the roost -- it's more like a scattered Helter Skelter approach.

And if you're wondering why Trump's spokespersons in his various "communications" departments are now insisting that the civil infraction of presence without proper documentation is now a crime, well, it's because Homeland Security has made it one, without any legislative input.

In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was preparing to enforce a 1940s law that had remained dormant for several decades: the Alien Registration Act. The law, which requires everyone in the U.S. for more than thirty days to register with the government, had previously been unenforceable because it was impossible for many immigrants to comply. Many immigration forms and statuses count as “registration” under the law, but immigrants who had entered without inspection and remained in the U.S. without incident— for years if not decades—had no way of “getting legal” and no form they could fill out.

So Trump had HSI (or maybe Stephen Miller) created a form.

By creating a registration form for these immigrants, the Trump administration was pointedly not offering them any form of protection from deportation. While the Department of Homeland Security has in the past offered assurances that information submitted in immigration forms would not be used for immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has made no such assurances—raising the possibility that the 57,000 immigrants who had signed up for the registry as of late May 2025 have essentially turned their location and other contact information over to ICE to arrest and deport them.

Indeed, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in announcing the policy that once immigrants register, “we will help them relocate right back to their home country.” Immigrants who do not register, meanwhile, run the risk of criminal arrest and prosecution under a parallel criminal law that makes failure to register a crime.

What court is used to bring the criminal charge? It's not clear (it may be the Central Violations Bureau which handles things like petty offenses committed in a national park or forest). Here is what is known:

Publicly available court records identify at least 22 cases in which prosecutors attempted to charge defendants for failing to register or failing to carry proof of registration with them, with prosecutors in Louisiana, Alabama, and Montana appearing particularly keen. In several of these cases, however, charges have been dismissed—with some judges appearing skeptical of the use of the registration law for this purpose.

It is worth noting that defendants in registration cases remain subject to deportation even if the charges are dismissed. In several of the cases where judges dismissed criminal charges, the defendants were still remanded to ICE custody—meaning that they would remain in deportation proceedings despite their criminal cases being dropped.

One last but important point, made by Judge Cobb:

Cobb said the “underlying question” is “whether parolees who escaped oppression will have the chance to plead their case within a system of rules.”

“Or, alternatively, will they be summarily removed from a country that — as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges — may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape,”?

For the irony of it all, take a look at the State Department's current warnings and country reports. For Türkiye, which was lifted on July 3, 2025:

Security forces have detained tens of thousands of people, including U.S. citizens, for alleged ties to terrorist groups based on scant or secret evidence and grounds that appear to be politically motivated. U.S. citizens have also been subject to exit bans that prevent them from departing Türkiye. Protests not approved by the Turkish government can lead to arrest, as can criticizing the government, including on social media.

Belarus:

Do not travel to Belarus due to the Belarusian authorities’ arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the risk of detention, the continued facilitation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the potential of civil unrest, and the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Belarus. U.S. citizens in Belarus should depart immediately.

...Due to Belarusian authorities’ arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the risk of detention.... do not travel to Belarus.

U.S. citizens are advised to avoid public demonstrations. Authorities have used force to disperse demonstrators, including those peacefully demonstrating. Bystanders, including foreign nationals, may face the possibility of arrest or detention.

Reconsider bringing electronic devices into Belarus. U.S. citizens should assume all electronic communications and devices in Belarus are monitored by Belarusian security services. Belarusian security services have arrested U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals based on information found on electronic devices, including information that was created, transmitted, or stored while in another country.

Hong Kong and Macau:

Summary: Hong Kong SAR authorities have dramatically restricted civil liberties since the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) imposed the Law of the PRC on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong SAR on June 30, 2020. Following the Hong Kong SAR government’s enactment of its own Safeguarding National Security Ordinance on March 23, 2024, Hong Kong SAR authorities are expected to take additional actions to further restrict civil liberties.

The 2020 National Security Law outlines a broad range of vaguely defined offenses, such as acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign entities. The 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance builds on this framework with additional vaguely defined offenses, such as treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage against public infrastructure, and external interference.

According to the legislation, these offenses are applicable to foreign nationals within the Hong Kong SAR and to individuals, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents, located outside its borders.

Under these provisions, anyone who criticizes the PRC and/or Hong Kong SAR authorities may face arrest, detention, expulsion, and/or prosecution. Hong Kong SAR authorities are attempting to enforce these provisions against individuals, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents, residing outside their jurisdiction by offering cash rewards for information leading to their arrests in the Hong Kong SAR.

.... Exercise increased caution when traveling to the Macau SAR due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws.

Eritrea:

U.S. citizens visiting or residing in Eritrea, including dual U.S.-Eritrean nationals, have been arrested and detained without charge or on false charges. The Department has determined that the risk of wrongful detention of U.S. nationals by the Eritrean government exists.

Eritrean law enforcement officials routinely block access by U.S. government officials to U.S. citizens in detention. The U.S. Embassy therefore may not receive notification of your arrest or be allowed access to you if you are detained or arrested.

How's that for the proverbial pot calling the kettle black?

Trump's polarizing extremist brand of nationalism, which many have compared to the dualistic religion of Manichaeism that began in the third century in Persia and spread to Rome and Europe before dying out, is anything but patriotic. To Trump, everything is either good or evil, black or white, light or dark. Immigrants from Mexico are rapists, murderers, child abusers and thieves.

Donald Trump has done more single-handedly to demolish the foundation of our democracy than any one else in American history. We are no longer a beacon of freedom and tolerance to the free world. We are no different than any of the autocratic, dictatorial regimes the State Department is advising us not to visit. Maybe the Statue of Liberty should be returned to France.