如果你仅凭特朗普政府的声明和新闻稿来了解情况，你可能会认为“美国历史上最大规模的驱逐行动”正在接近其每年驱逐100万无证移民的目标，且其中大多数是代表着“最恶劣中的最恶劣”的重罪犯。不幸的是，这就是大多数美国人仅能依仗的信息：该政府压制了其移民执法数据（这些数据过去是每月提供的），并且在信息极度匮乏的同时，将其核心倡议之一粉饰为一次巨大的成功。
If all you had to go by was the Trump administration’s statements and press releases, you might think that “the largest deportation operation in American history” was closing in on its goal of deporting a million undocumented immigrants a year and that most of them were hardened criminals who represented “the worst of the worst.”Unfortunately, that all that most Americans have had to go by: The administration has squelched its data on immigration enforcement, which used to be provided monthly, and, alongside the dearth of information, spun one of its foundational initiatives as a grand success.
但本周公布的数据——事实上来自于曾领导负责发布政府数据办公室的那个人——表明，该政府不仅夸大了离开美国的无非法居留移民的数量，而且被锁定位于驱逐目标的绝大多数人也并非罪犯。相反，该政府使用的误导性数字和妖魔化言论正在扭曲公众的认知，并使理性的成本效益分析发生偏差。
But numbers released this week — from the person who used to lead the office responsible for releasing the government’s data, in fact — show that not only is the administration exaggerating the number of unauthorized immigrants departing the US, but the vast majority of those targeted for deportation aren’t criminals. The misleading numbers and demonizing rhetoric instead used by the administration are warping public perception and skewing rational cost-benefit analysis.
移民政策研究所的报告部分利用通过《信息自由法》申请收集到的数据，审视了特朗普政府最初的18个月里，美国移民和海关执法局以及海关与边境保护局人员所执行的驱逐出境数量。这项工作由马克·罗森布卢姆完成，他曾领导国土安全部的移民统计办公室十年之久。他发现，按年化计算，该政府有望在2026财年完成约66万次驱逐。
The Migration Policy Institute’s report uses data partly gleaned from Freedom of Information Act requests to examine the number of deportations carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel during the Trump administration’s first 18 months. It was done by Marc Rosenblum, who led the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics for a decade. He finds that on an annualized basis, the administration is on track to complete about 660,000 deportations in fiscal year 2026.
这比拜登执政时期的平均水平高出26%，但仍远低于2000财年186万次驱逐的峰值。然而，若没有他这种精细分析的能力，公众未必能得知这些：国土安全部尚未发布任何关于2024财年或2025财年的边境安全指标或移民执法的报告。
That’s up 26% from the average during the Biden years but still well below the peak of 1.86 million deportations in fiscal year 2000. But without his forensic chops, the public wouldn’t necessarily know: DHS hasn’t released any reports on border security metrics or immigration enforcement for fiscal year 2024 or 2025.
死忠的MAGA群体可能会抓住罗森布拉姆对统计数据的压低解读，进一步向国土安全部部长马克韦恩·马林施压，要求他兑现特朗普那套反乌托邦式的愿景。但如果说有什么影响的话，这些新数字恰恰说明，要实现MAGA那个狂热的梦想——驱逐据估计生活在美国的全部1350万无证移民——将是多么艰难、昂贵和痛苦。即便共和党控制的国会已为国土安全部拨款到2029财年、总额高达令人瞠目的2400亿美元——例如使移民和海关执法局能够在一年内将执法人员数量增加一倍以上——驱逐出境的总数也并未创下纪录。
Die-hard MAGA types may seize on Rosenblum’s statistical deflations to press DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin even harder to deliver on Trump’s dystopian vision. But if anything, the new numbers illuminate just how hard, expensive and wrenching it will be to realize MAGA’s fever dream of deporting all 13.5 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the US. Even with the mind-boggling $240 billion that a Republican Congress has appropriated for DHS through fiscal year 2029 — enabling ICE, for instance, to more than double its officer count in a year — the total number of deportations isn’t record-breaking.
诚然，如果你非法居留在美国，面临拘留和驱逐的前景值得担忧。但国家有能力驱逐某人，并不意味着这就是最佳的政策选择。
To be sure, if you’re in the US illegally, the prospect of detention and deportation deserves worry. But just because the state can deport someone doesn’t mean it’s the best policy choice.
罗森布拉姆的评估认为，移民和海关执法局与海关和边境保护局在2025年1月20日至2026年7月31日期间完成了约98万次驱逐出境，这与国土安全部的说法一致，即截至7月12日已“驱逐了超过98.5万名非法外国人”。（且不提马林曾在7月17日称总数为845,931人。）但更能说明问题的是这些数字背后的“是谁、如何、在哪里”——也就是政府不再提供的那类细粒度数据。
Rosenblum’s assessment that ICE and CBP completed about 980,000 deportations between Jan. 20, 2025, and July 31, 2026, is consistent with DHS’ statement that it had “deported over 985,000 illegal aliens” as of July 12. (Never mind that Mullin had said on July 17 that the total was 845,931.) But it’s the who, how and where of those numbers — the kind of granular data that the government is no longer providing — that’s more telling.
驱逐出境包括“遣返”（removal），这种形式更为正式并带有法律处罚，以及“自行离境”（return），即未经授权进入美国的人（通常是在边境）同意离开美国。罗森布拉姆指出，特朗普政府正越来越多地依赖“自行离境”来加快驱逐速度，甚至对在远离边境的地方被捕的人也是如此。此外，特朗普第二任期内的年均“遣返”数量低于奥巴马两届政府的平均水平。后者的处理速度更快，但影响和威慑效果较小。
Deportations consist of “removals,” which are more formal and carry legal penalties, and “returns,” in which individuals who have entered the US without authorization (usually at the border) agree to leave the US. Rosenblum notes that the Trump administration is increasingly relying on returns to speed up deportations, even for those arrested far from the border. Moreover, the average annual number of removals under Trump 2.0 lags that of the average during the two Obama administrations. Those had faster processing but less impact and deterrent effect.
近几个月来，美国政府在美国本土加大了逮捕行动的力度。然而，尽管投入了大量资源，罗森布卢姆（Rosenblum）的数据显示，这些逮捕行动的年均数量仍低于奥巴马执政时期的水平。
In recent months, the administration has also stepped up its arrests in the interior of the US. Again, despite the massive infusion of resources, the annualized averages of these arrests still lag those from the Obama years, Rosenblum’s data show.
那么，美国国土安全部（DHS）发布的那些夸大其词的新闻稿又该如何看待呢？首先，来自德克萨斯州的数据表明：无证移民的的重罪逮捕率通常低于合法移民或美国公民。其次，罗森布卢姆指出，大多数被驱逐出境的人之所以被定罪，是因为他们非法越境或违反了交通法规（包括酒驾）。第三，虽然特朗普政府每年平均驱逐了12万名有犯罪记录的人，但这一数字在非疫情期间属于自2008财年以来的最低水平。
What about those lurid, -wannabe press releases that DHS sends touting ICE’s latest apprehensions? First, a gentle, data-based reminder (from Texas, no less) that undocumented immigrants tend to have a lower felony arrest rate than legal immigrants or US citizens. Second, most convictions of deportees are for illegally crossing the border or traffic offenses (including driving under the influence), as Rosenblum notes. Third, while this Trump administration has racked up an annualized average of 120,000 removals of people with criminal convictions, outside of the pandemic years that is the lowest recorded total since fiscal year 2008.
总体而言，在新数据所涵盖的期间内，被定罪的罪犯仅占所有被驱逐出境者的31%，远低于2009至2021财年的平均比例（44%）。
All told, convicted criminals accounted for only 31% of all removals in the period covered by the new data, well below the average of 44% for fiscal year 2009-21.
显然，特朗普政府更注重尽可能广泛地实施逮捕行动，而非真正打击那些危害社会安全的犯罪分子；这对守法公民来说无疑是一个令人担忧的现象。值得注意的是，在特朗普政府驱逐的移民中，有74%的人在美国已经居住了两到十年，且他们都没有犯罪记录。这种无差别的驱逐政策很可能会让那些原本守法的无证移民不敢举报犯罪行为。这真的是对我们日益紧张的财政资源的最佳利用方式吗？
It’s clear that the Trump administration is less focused on rooting out real bad guys than it is on casting the widest dragnet possible, with unsettling implications for law-abiding communities: Consider that 74% of its deportations of people settled in the US for two-to-ten years involved those who had no criminal convictions. Indiscriminate ICE sweeps are likely to deter otherwise law-abiding undocumented people from reporting crimes. Is that really the best use of our increasingly stretched taxpayer dollars?
罗森布卢姆的分析并未涉及大规模驱逐行动的具体费用问题。不过，美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）估计，识别、逮捕、拘留、处理并驱逐一名非法移民的成本约为1.8万美元。如果每年实施100万次驱逐行动，总成本将达到180亿美元；如果实施1350万次驱逐行动，总成本则将达到2430亿美元。这些数字还不包括建立和运营相关执法系统所需的全部费用（包括住宿设施、运输工具、基础设施、执法人员等），美国移民委员会估计这些费用每年约为880亿美元，10年内的总成本约为1万亿美元。
Rosenblum’s analysis doesn’t get into the dollars and cents of mass deportations. But ICE estimates that it costs about $18,000 to identify, arrest, detain, process and remove one unauthorized immigrant. A million deportations a year could cost $18 billion; 13.5 million deportations, $243 billion. That doesn’t include the full cost of building and running a system (Think beds, airplanes, infrastructure, judges, etc.) to handle that volume, which the American Immigration Council puts at $88 billion a year, or about $1 trillion over 10 years.
正如美国政府问责局最近所指出的那样，国会向美国国土安全部（DHS）提供的巨额资金已经导致了严重的浪费和腐败现象。例如，ICE曾花费10亿美元购买了11座仓库以扩大拘留能力，但后来发现实际上只需要4座仓库即可满足需求。此外，前国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆未经招标就安排购买了10架用于驱逐行动的飞机，相关合同金额约为5亿美元，而这些飞机大多至今仍未被使用，因为国土安全部缺乏相应的运营人员。
And as the Government Accountability Office has recently documented, the horn of plenty that Congress lavished on DHS is already a breeder of waste and fraud worthy of DOGE’s attention. ICE, for example, bought 11 warehouses for $1 billion to expand detention capacity and then decided only four were needed. Let’s not forget the 10 airplanes that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem arranged to purchase for deportation flights, in a no-bid contract worth about $500 million awarded to one of her political donors. They have sat mostly unused because DHS lacks the personnel to operate them.
正如越来越多的联邦储备银行报告所揭示的那样，驱逐行动正在对整体经济活动造成严重破坏；罗森布卢姆的数据分析再次提醒我们：良好的政策制定必须依赖于可靠、透明且易于获取的政府数据。驱逐行动无疑仍是移民执法的重要手段，但美国公众必须能够明确：这种手段应在何种规模下实施，以及需要付出多少代价？
Like the growing spate of regional Federal Reserve Bank reports highlighting the damage that deportation raids are doing to overall economic activity, Rosenblum’s data dive is a sober reminder that good policy depends on reliable, transparent and accessible government data. Deportation will always remain an essential penalty for immigration enforcement. The question that America’s voting public must be equipped to answer is: at what scale and what cost?