“They’re letting horrible people into our country. They are poisoning our country by contrast,” President Donald Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump’s stance on illegal aliens or illegal immigrants entering the United States will be harming U.S. citizens and the U.S. economy. Trump believes these are enough to justify the deportations. On Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order to start using the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to deport people.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported around 20,000 people in the span of a month. This is a large contrast compared to when his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, was in office. 33,000 people were deported in 2024 during the last year of Biden’s presidency. Throughout President Trump’s second term, internet netizens have taken to the internet and have coined the term ‘Little Red Boots’.
“It’s code for anything anti-government,” a Reddit user said on social media. The term ‘Little Red Boots’ has been used to spread awareness; however, people have started to joke about these deportations as a way for internet users to cope within their community. They use this term to talk about ICE, Protests and what Trump is doing so that people’s content on these things doesn’t get censored.
“Watching your Mexican neighbor getting deported, glad it’s him first,” TikToker Albert writes on his video. The TikTok user is Hispanic and a U.S. Army veteran. He uses his TikTok page to share about his life, opinions and jokes. Jokes like this are being told on social media to bring people together through the mutual connection and pain they are sharing.
On March 10, the United States government added a function to the app CBP Home that was created for deporting illegal immigrants. The U.S. wants these people to turn themselves in via the app.
“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream. If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them and they will never return,” said Kristi Neom, secretary of Homeland Security.
According to the Center of Migration Studies (CMS), these deportations are harmful not only to illegal immigrants but also to U.S. citizens and the U.S. economy. The people being characterized as illegal immigrants contribute to our economy, whether it’s through labor or taxes to the government. The number of labor workers in construction is expected to drop by 500,000 in 2025 because of these deportations. In 2022, illegal immigrants paid around 31.5 billion dollars in taxes to the federal government, state government and local government. 6.4 billion of that went to Medicare, which illegal immigrants do not qualify for.
During President Trump’s second term, he has continued to enforce his immigration laws, via the CBP home app and ICE. Many people online are unhappy with President Trump’s policy and have gone online to inform people but also joke about things that are happening. CMS says that these deportations will impact the United States in many ways.
