During the run-up to President Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign, he told supporters that “mass deportations” were coming. Now, even as the immigration crackdown has become one of his most visible policies, some figures in the MAGA movement say they were “intentionally misled,” arguing that Trump is not doing enough to fulfill his hard-line campaign promises. That account comes from the conservative publication The Dispatch, which says “a vocal part of his base is beginning to publicly break with the administration over immigration enforcement.”

The Trump administration has pursued what The Dispatch described as “maximalist enforcement for more than a year — with deadly consequences — while also claiming the deportation campaign is prioritizing the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals” and insisting that “its enforcement policies have resulted in a record-high number of deportations.” But, according to the report, “the agency has stopped releasing the underlying data that would substantiate — or possibly undermine — its claims.” The Dispatch added that “a vocal contingent of mass-deportation activists don’t believe the topline numbers coming from DHS and argue the administration is failing to honor Trump’s promise to deport millions of people.”

“I’m confused, I’m frustrated, and quite frankly, I’m angry because I believe we’re being intentionally misled,” said Mark Morgan, a former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) acting commissioner and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director during Trump’s first term. Morgan is involved in the Oversight Project, “an activist group lobbying for mass deportations that recently sued the administration to get access to enforcement data DHS used to publish regularly.”

Since Trump entered office, the White House has stopped releasing detailed immigrant arrest data through platforms such as the ICE website, which was previously updated quarterly. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security now publishes topline figures claiming hundreds of thousands of deportations and millions of self-deportations. The agency currently says that more than 2 million undocumented immigrants have left the country, a figure that has become central to how the administration presents its enforcement record even as the underlying methodology remains disputed by some advocates.

“Significantly,” The Dispatch noted, “this number was not based on actual records DHS has of millions of people leaving. DHS cited a Center for Immigration Studies researcher’s analysis as the source of the initial number, but has not explained how it has calculated the subsequent increases; the researcher, Steven Camarota, told The Dispatch last fall that how DHS has used the estimate doesn’t add up.”

Deportation advocates accuse the White House of inflating the figures by counting removals that were not previously treated as deportations, including people turned away at airports because of visa paperwork problems and people apprehended while trying to cross the border. In response, “Immigration hard-liners in the House sent a letter to DHS last month requesting detailed data releases, citing conflicting reports on the numbers of deportations and the lack of transparency in how the agency is calculating self-deportations.”

Earlier this month, DHS released data indicating that immigration arrest levels reached the highest point of Trump’s term, peaking at 1,400 per day in July, according to The Dispatch. But, the publication said, “after more than a year of DHS circulating unsubstantiated and conflicting data, deportation hawks seem unimpressed and disinclined to believe the numbers.”

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project and head of the Mass Deportation Coalition, said last week that the 356,000 removals claimed by the administration in 2026 “includes exits and removals other than from interior deportations.” He added, “The numbers are also strikingly out of step with press releases claiming deportations cresting one million and self-deportations exceeding 2 million.”

Other MAGA figures have voiced similar disappointment. According to The Dispatch, “Tomi Lahren, a Fox commentator, dedicated her podcast show last week to criticizing DHS for fudging the numbers and producing underwhelming results. Deportation advocates like Lahren and Howell argued that even taking the latest 356,000 figure at face value ... it’s still a far cry from the expectations set by Trump during the 2024 campaign when he promised the largest deportation campaign in history that would remove millions and millions of people from the country.”