Aggressive interior immigration enforcement under Trump is being credited with pushing roughly 2 million people to leave the US on their own, a win for immigration hawks and a blow to undocumented communities and the officials who wanted enforcement slowed down.

• A small team of around 250 Border Patrol agents carried out interior deportation operations, echoing the Eisenhower-era 1950s mass deportation campaign that removed over a million people with just a thousand agents.
• Veteran agent JJ Carroll says he rejoined the service specifically because he believed Trump was serious about the mission, only to find many officials weren't actually following through despite the public rhetoric.
• Agents claim bureaucrats and politicians kept trying to slow-roll or block the operation once it became clear it was real and not just symbolic.
• Border Patrol reportedly won three major court challenges over its tactics and use of force, leaving opponents with no legal path to stop it.
• The scale of self-deportation is being framed as proof the strategy worked faster and cheaper than mass arrests would have.

Outlook: Expect continued political fighting over interior enforcement tactics, with legal challenges likely to keep testing how far these operations can go.