ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said he would like to transform migrant deportations into a system reminiscent of the “Amazon Prime” service, with multiple trucks in action across the country, ready to pick up illegals and deport them from the country.
Human beings treated like parcels to be shipped elsewhere: that, in a nutshell, is the plan that ICE’s leader, along with “border czar” Tom Homan, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, put forward at the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix.
At the event, the three praised President Trump’s use of the Aliens Enemies Act, a 1798 law that was last used during World War II to intern the Japanese in America, to deport Venezuelan immigrants.
Lyons also spoke enthusiastically about new technologies that could potentially be used by ICE in the deportation process. The official hopes that the agency could take advantage of, for example, artificial intelligence to “free up beds” and “fill planes” at a faster rate.
Several speakers at the Phoenix event, including Homan, reiterated the importance of having a deportation system run like a business, assuring that the Trump administration depends on the private sector to complete its mass deportation program.
Lyons’ idea of turning the agency into a kind of Amazon “reserved” for human transportation immediately met with a variety of criticism. Cinthya Rodriguez, national leader of the Latino advocacy group Mijente, spoke out, saying: “ICE’s fantasy of becoming ‘Amazon Prime for deportations’ exposes the infrastructure behind Trump’s deportation agenda: mass removals powered by big tech and data. Over the years, Ice has contracted with tech companies to automate policing, relying on the dehumanization of immigrant communities.”
“These policies are cruel, reckless and driven by white supremacy and greed – not safety,” she added, concluding that, “To seek to automate deportations at Amazon-like speed only furthers that harm.”
