Trump Escalates His War Against Dreamers As Senate Hearing Exposes Ongoing ...

DHS has admitted to kicking out nearly 90 DACA recipients and detaining 261 others despite long-standing protections shielding them from deportation

The U.S. government made a promise to the hundreds of thousands of long-settled immigrants who’ve applied and been approved for the DACA program: if you follow the rules, stay out of trouble, and submit your biometrics and application fees, you can continue to live and work here without the threat of deportation hanging over your head. But under Donald Trump’s administration, that promise has been fundamentally broken.

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has admitted to deporting 86 DACA recipients and detaining another 261 others, confirming fears that program beneficiaries are being targeted despite holding protections issued by the same government now singling them out. Among them are Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Northern California mom and DACA recipient who lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years. Last month, she was separated from her family while attending her green card appointment, ABC 10 reported:

View this post on Instagram

This nightmare began when Estrada Juarez and her daughter, Damaris Bello, arrived with all the necessary paperwork, tax documents, and proof of vaccinations in hand for their green card appointment. Bello said that she even did her mom’s hair and makeup ahead of this special day. They believed everything was going fine. But then they saw a plainclothes agent approach them. Despite the fact that Estrada Juarez was being sponsored by Bello, a U.S. citizen, she was deported within 24 hours of being detained.

“It seemed like we walked in and she never had a chance,” Bello later told ABC 10. “It felt like we just walked into a trap.” Estrada Juarez, a hotel manager who had lived in the U.S. since she was a teen, said unidentifiable agents “cuffed her feet and hands, ‘like I was the most wanted criminal in the whole United States. I never felt so humiliated,’ she said emotionally,” the report continued.

View this post on Instagram

What the administration is making clear in its actions is that DACA recipients everywhere are under threat. While most current beneficiaries live in California (147,440) or Texas (87,890), these Americans-in-waiting call every single U.S. state their home. Illinois, for example, is home to the third-largest population of DACA recipients (27,800). Nevada (10,290), Virginia (7,620), and Pennsylvania (3,870) are also home to significant populations of DACA recipients. Some also call New Hampshire (220) and Maine (70) their home. This is all to say that DACA recipients and their families are embedded in communities all over this country.

However, because as many as three million young immigrants could be eligible for relief through the Dream Act or other similar legislation, these numbers represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the long-settled contributors who could be separated and purged from the only country they’ve known as home. They have been exiled to countries they haven’t known for decades for no reason beyond the administration’s mass deportation obsessions. DHS Sec. Kristi Noem claimed in a Feb. 11 letter that hundreds of DACA recipients had “criminal histories” but provided no evidence to back that up. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Noem still had no answers as to why she deported them:

Sen. DURBIN: Your agency arrested 261 DACA holders last year—and deported 86 of them. Why have you deported dozens of DACA holders?Noem: We follow all laws.Durbin: Why did you deport them?Noem: I don’t know the details.

—

[Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 (@judiciarydems.senate.gov)][2026-03-03T16:02:15.386Z]

“DACA recipients go through strict background checks every time they renew this protection,” senators noted, “and the Trump administration has not hesitated to arrest immigrants with no serious criminal convictions and falsely label them the ‘worst of the worst.’” Remember that in just the first weeks of the new administration, officials admitted that they believed all immigrants are “criminals” even if they have no criminal record. And, knowing that DHS often lies to the public about its actions, the actual number of DACA recipients targeted by the administration could likely be higher. This is a crisis.

“News of DACA recipients being arrested and deported is deeply troubling,” senators continued. “These arrests disrupt families, harm communities, and inflict unnecessary social, emotional, and economic costs. And it is a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

What’s also a complete waste are the billions being squandered on a national scale because the administration and its Congressional allies are prioritizing mass deportation over meaningful reforms to our broken immigration system and economic relief for working families struggling to pay their bills. Look at ICE detention. The government plans to fork out nearly $40 billion in taxpayer dollars to build mass camps “mirroring the scale of Japanese American internment during WWII,” as Truthout noted. Hundreds of millions have already been shelled out to purchase industrial warehouses in states including Pennsylvania, which is site to two new warehouse purchases by ICE.

If it’s not sheer waste, it’s sheer greed. Not satisfied with just wasting resources targeting long-settled contributors, Noem is reportedly looking to spend nearly $300 million on a luxury jet fleet. DHS has already purchased two Gulfstreams for nearly $200 million but apparently wants to buy a third, $70 million luxury jet that “features a bedroom with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs and even a bar,” NBC News reported. The outlet reported that a brochure for the leased luxury aircraft touts interior decorating by a New York designer and boasts that “no expense has been spared and every detail has been meticulously executed.”

Of course, it’s easy to spare no expense when you aren’t the one footing the bill. “‘This is the world’s worst deal to buy an aircraft,’ a senior administration official told Axios when granted anonymity to discuss internal matters,” the outlet reported. “‘This is an abuse,’ the official said, calling it a misuse of federal money.” During the Senate hearing Tuesday, Noem pretended to not be familiar with the luxury aircraft. Noem also repeatedly claimed during the hearing that she has saved the taxpayer over $13 billion. Even if we take her at her word, taxpayers are still shelling out $170 billion to aid in the administration’s mass deportation agenda. In another noteworthy moment, Noem was also criticized by a member of her own party over a $220 million ad campaign that heavily promoted her and just happened to benefit a firm with close personal ties:

KENNEDY: How do square your concern w/ waste w/spending $220m on ads that feature you prominently?NOEM: The president tasked me with getting message outK: You're testifying Trump approved them?N: Yes sir. They were effectiveK: It's effective for your name rec. It puts POTUS in awkward spot

If it’s not government-funded cruelty or greed, it’s corruption. Just days ago, the administration launched a vanity war against Iran that has claimed the lives of six U.S. military service members and dozens of Iranian schoolchildren. The administration launched this vanity war not from a secure room at the White House but instead from one of the president’s resorts, which have been “an epicenter of his conflicts and corruption” during his second term, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said.

And in a classic example of “do as I say, not as I do,” the administration is supposedly encouraging the Iranian people to stand up for themselves and reject repression while continuing to target and terrorize Americans exercising their rights here at home, America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas noted. “Just last week, mere hours before the attacks on Iran started, Trump’s AG Pam Bondi announced federal charges against 30 more Americans who were engaged in peaceful protest in Minneapolis, exercising their constitutional first amendment rights to speak out against mass deportation.”

“It’s clear this administration thinks they are above the law and don’t need to adhere to constitutional checks and balances – whether it’s ignoring the Constitution and bypassing the war powers role of Congress or ignoring federal judges and court orders about immigration,” she continued. “All of it’s a reminder why we need more accountability, more oversight, and not another penny in funding for this administration’s recklessness and mass deportation crusade.”