Regional Overview
United States & Canada
February 2025

United States: Trump’s mass-deportation plans spark a record number of pro-immigration demonstrations

On and around Inauguration Day, demonstrations against President Trump spiked to their highest levels since the buildup to the 2020 presidential election. Under the banner of the “People’s March,” demonstrators rallied in support of a progressive agenda, including protections for LGBTQ+ people, migrants, and the environment, as well as access to abortion. Largely as a result of the People’s March mobilization, demonstrations demanding access to abortion also spiked to their highest levels since January 2023, when marches across the country commemorated the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. In large part due to the People’s March mobilizations, January recorded the highest single-month number of demonstrations in support of migrants and immigration since ACLED began collecting data in 2020, more than doubling the previous high. Border states, especially Texas and California, saw the highest levels of pro-immigration demonstrations. In comparison, demonstrations against immigration last month were outnumbered by a factor of more than 30 to 1. 

As pro-immigration demonstrations took place, highly publicized operations by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were carried out across the county, leading to nearly 1,200 arrests on 26 January alone according to ICE reports.¹Gabe Gutierrez and Nicole Acevedo, ‘ICE makes close to 1,200 arrests in one day,’ NBC News, 27 January 2025 ICE focused its efforts in sanctuary cities, counties, and states — areas with policies refusing to comply with voluntary federal government requests related to detaining migrants — after Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from them.²Arelis R. Hernández, ‘What are sanctuary cities, and why is Trump targeting them?’ Washington Post, 28 January 2025 Via executive orders, Trump also ended access to an app that facilitated the entry of migrants, suspended the admission of new refugees, and removed protections forbidding the arrest of migrants at sensitive locations like churches and schools.³Rebeca Santana, ‘Trump administration throws out policies limiting migrant arrests at sensitive spots like churches,’ Associated Press, 22 January 2025 Despite this flurry of activity, an analysis by Politico found that deportation levels under the first few weeks of the new administration remain similar to previous administrations.⁴Myah Ward and Jessica Piper, ‘Mass deportations haven’t arrived but Trump’s PR blitz has,’ Politico, 4 February 2025 The kinds of operations that were standard in previous years have been trumpeted by the administration and covered more widely in the press, while many of those detained under Trump have since been released for lack of detention capacity, among other reasons.

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Extremism Spotlight: The Trump inauguration: an inflection point for extremist groups?

On 20 January, the date of Trump’s inauguration, Proud Boys marched in Washington, DC, marking their first demonstration activity in two months. As Trump became president, many groups showed support for his anti-migrant rhetoric and initial executive actions, including a Proud Boys chapter that floated the idea of the group working as independent contractors to “clean up” migrants. Even neo-Nazi ‘active clubs’ have broken their usual silence about Trump on their public social media platforms to express support for his mass deportation plans. 

On the same day, Trump signed an executive order granting clemency to participants in the Capitol Riot, including Proud Boys leadership and Oath Keepers leadership, releasing them from prison. An account associated with the Proud Boys national leadership thanked Trump, and various regional chapters posted celebratory messages, with one in Rhode Island calling for retribution on “leftist demons.” 

These developments would have been nearly impossible to imagine in the wake of the January 2021 riot. The controversy following 6 January led militia leadership group the Three Percenters National Council — which had been active for more than 10 years — to dissolve itself, and caused persistent reputational issues for some groups in the years that followed, damaging their recruitment capabilities.⁵Daniel Walters, ‘Washington Three Percenters want to escape the ‘extremist’ label — but experts remain wary,’ Investigate West, 7 December 2023; Tess Owen, ‘This Three Percenter Militia Group Just Cancelled Itself Because of the Capitol Riots,’ VICE News, 26 February 2021 Given their reversal in fate, it seems unlikely that participation in the Capitol riot will remain a black spot on these groups’ public image.

Though ACLED has noted that 2024 saw the lowest levels of extremist mobilization since we started collecting US data in 2020, Trump’s inauguration may represent a turning point. Extremist groups are often driven by opportunity, jumping from cause to cause to remain in the public eye, often in opposition to large demonstration movements (for more on extremist groups’ mobilization and drivers, see this ACLED report). Widespread demonstrations against Trump, such as those already taking place in the first weeks of his presidency, may present an opportunity for extremist groups to counter-mobilize. This dynamic, alongside the release of key extremist group leaders, raises flags that the United States may be on the brink of a resurgence in extremist activity. However, it is important to note that in the very short time since Trump began his second term, no such resurgence has taken place, and January 2025 saw just over half the number of extremist events as January of the previous year.

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