Red States Hold the Key to Deportations
Editor's Note
Immigration enforcement has become one of the central battlefields in America’s cold civil war. The conflict is no longer only between Washington and its opponents. It increasingly runs through the institutions of government themselves—between officials willing to enforce the nation’s laws and those content to leave them unenforced. This essay from Carter Newman argues that the outcome of the deportation effort will depend not only on federal action, but on whether red-state governments are prepared to exercise the powers they already have.
The federal government cannot deport millions of illegal aliens alone — and at present enforcement remains far below the scale the problem demands. Sixty-one percent of Americans support mass deportations, and President Trump has made the issue a signature priority of his administration, yet deportation numbers remain stubbornly low.
According to the DHS, only 675,000 illegal aliens, have been removed since January 2025, well below the 1.3 million deported from 1954-55 by the Eisenhower administration, which President Trump promised to beat. Twelve to thirty million illegals remain behind. But red states do not have to stand by while the federal government struggles alone. Republican governors and state legislators already possess the tools necessary to place their states at the forefront of the deportation effort.
This January, ICE arrested Julio Cesar Xocop-Vicente in South Carolina after he struck and killed a fifteen-year-old girl named Amber Paris. Xocop-Vicente is an illegal alien who had previously been arrested in 2023 for drunk driving and driving without a license. Despite that arrest, he was released and allowed to continue living and working in South Carolina. A child is dead because this man entered the country illegally, was taken into custody, and was nevertheless permitted to remain. South Carolina’s government did nothing to prevent it.
South Carolina is hardly alone in this failure. Like many red states, it has largely declined to act—not because effective policies are unavailable, but because they have not been adopted.
Florida provides a clear example of what serious action looks like. The state requires every sheriff to participate in the federal 287(g) program, which trains and authorizes local officers to assist ICE in identifying and removing criminal aliens from local jails. With strong legislative backing and coordination from Governor DeSantis’ office, all sixty-seven of Florida’s sheriff’s departments and roughly seventy-five percent of the state’s law-enforcement agencies now operate under 287(g) agreements. As a result, thousands of criminal illegal aliens have already been transferred to ICE custody. Across the rest of the red states, however, average participation stands at a mere 6.5 percent. One of the most effective deportation tools available to the federal government remains largely unused because state legislatures have chosen not to employ it.
Oklahoma has taken a different approach by focusing on financial pressure. For more than a decade, the state has imposed a one percent tax on remittances sent abroad. That modest tax generated thirteen million dollars last year alone—revenue drawn from hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise have left the state’s economy. Other red states could adopt similar policies with little difficulty.
Arizona has addressed the demand side of the labor market. The state rigorously enforces E-Verify and threatens to revoke the business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. The result has been measurable: Arizona’s illegal population declined.
Perhaps the most consequential step states can take is also the simplest: sharing information. Illegal aliens interact with state agencies constantly as they file taxes, apply for benefits, register vehicles, and seek treatment at hospitals. These interactions produce records that state governments already possess. Republican governors should direct the executive agencies under their authority to share relevant information with the Department of Homeland Security, allowing ICE to act on data that states already collect.
Governors should also work to measure the true costs of illegal immigration, which are often far larger than many realize. Governor Abbott recently ordered Texas hospitals to track patients’ immigration status. This simple intervention uncovered that illegal aliens cost Texas hospitals $124 million in a single month alone. State insurance commissioners could likewise quantify how much law-abiding Americans pay in higher premiums and other costs to subsidize individuals who have no legal right to reside in the country.
None of these policies is a panacea. Yet each has been tested, and each has produced measurable results. Where Republican officials act deliberately, illegal aliens either leave or are removed. States cannot avoid responsibility for enforcing the law within their own borders.
This is a national effort. The President cannot carry it out from Washington alone, nor should he be expected to do so. Red-state governors and legislators who campaigned on securing the border and deporting illegal aliens therefore have an obligation to follow through. The strategies are clear, the precedents already exist, and the policies have proven effective. What remains is the decision to act.