A social media post attributed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has triggered a wave of legal, political and civil-rights backlash after appearing to endorse the idea of deporting "100 million" people, a figure experts say vastly exceeds the number of noncitizens living in the United States and would be legally impossible to implement.
The post, shared from an official DHS account on X, depicted a stylized image of an emptied American landscape with the caption: "The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world." The graphic was paired with language referring to "100 million deportations," prompting immediate criticism from immigration lawyers, former government officials and policy analysts.
The reaction was swift in part because the figure dramatically exceeds known population data. According to federal estimates, the total foreign-born population in the United States - including citizens, legal residents and undocumented immigrants - stands at roughly 45 million. Any plan involving the removal of 100 million people would therefore imply the expulsion of U.S. citizens.
Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick responded publicly, noting that the entire foreign-born population falls far below the number cited. He warned that such rhetoric implies action that would be unconstitutional under existing law. Former Air Force general counsel Charles Blanchard also condemned the post, asking whether "the social media team [is] filled with idiots or white supremacists."
Legal scholars say U.S. law provides no mechanism for mass denaturalization or collective removal of citizens. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee due process protections, and Supreme Court precedent has repeatedly limited the government's authority to revoke citizenship except under narrow and individualized circumstances.
Historically, even the most aggressive immigration enforcement campaigns have operated on a far smaller scale. During President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1954 "Operation Wetback," roughly 1.3 million Mexican nationals were removed, a figure that remains the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history but still a fraction of the number referenced in the DHS post.
The controversy unfolds as the Trump administration continues to emphasize hard-line immigration messaging. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security launched a global campaign encouraging undocumented migrants to "self-deport," paired with warnings of future enforcement. At the time, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, "America's borders are closed to lawbreakers," framing the effort as a public-safety initiative.
Officials have also promoted expanded enforcement capacity. Internal planning documents last year referenced an $80 million to $100 million recruitment and communications effort aimed at hiring thousands of additional immigration enforcement personnel. Those plans, however, were focused on operational capacity rather than mass removals on the scale implied in the recent post.
Policy analysts say the latest message blurs the line between political rhetoric and actionable policy. One immigration specialist told a regional outlet that "this is not a routine enforcement number; it's a nation-altering figure," adding that deporting tens of millions of people would be logistically, legally and diplomatically impossible.
Beyond legal constraints, experts point to operational limits. Deportations require detention capacity, immigration court proceedings, bilateral agreements with receiving countries and transportation infrastructure. Even at peak enforcement levels, removals have historically numbered in the hundreds of thousands annually, not tens of millions.
The post has not been formally clarified or retracted by DHS, and the White House has not issued an official explanation. Legal scholars say the absence of clarification risks further confusion about the administration's intentions, particularly as immigration remains a central political issue heading into the next election cycle.
