On Wednesday's Morning Joe, MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski tried to put a negative spin on how successful President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has been, but was then contradicted by reporter Julia Ainsley who pointed out that there has been a dramatic drop in illegal border crossings.
Brzezinski set up the segment by with a tone of trying to embarrass President Trump by hinting that he had failed to fix problems during his first term that he has recently been complaining about. The words "If it's broken, why didn't he fix it?" displayed on screen.
She specified the problems with the Social Security Administration and USAID spending, and then, as if to suggest that Trump should also be ashamed of how he has handled immigration compared to President Joe Biden, she proceeded to highlight recent findings that Trump deported fewer illegal aliens in February 2025 than Biden did in February 2024:
"And then there's President Trump's claims of being tough on undocumented immigration while suggesting former President Biden was weak on the border. But now, new exclusive reporting from NBC News shows Trump actually deported fewer people last month than Biden did one year ago."
On screen viewers could see an online article by reporters Ainsley and Laura Stickler titled, "Trump deported fewer people than Biden a year ago, but border crossings have plummeted."
After bringing aboard Ainsley to discuss her findings, co-host Joe Scarborough brought up the lower border crossings as she posed: "And, Julia, two different stories going on here. One is that deportations are lower but, also -- as you also have reported -- border crossings have plummeted."
The NBC News reporter began by suggesting that Trump is failing to keep his campaign promises on deportations. She then got to what should have been the lead -- that Trump has drastically cut the number of illegal border crossings very quickly, although she failed to specify any numbers to illustrate just how impressive the results have been:
A big reason for that drop, though, and why it's lower under Trump than it was under Biden is because Customs and Border Protection are arresting fewer people at the border. It's much easier to deport people right after they've crossed. We have a pathway there called "expedited removal." Biden used this, too, where they're basically deported very quickly rather than being in the United States and facing that years long backlog in immigration courts. And so it's easier to deport them if they're arrested by border patrol.
By contrast, when MSNBC anchor Jose Diaz-Balart had Ainsley on his show the day before, he was more forthright in displaying on screen that border apprehensions in February were just 8,326 compared to 189,913 in February 2024, and noted that, in a typical year, most of those deported just recently crossed the border.
In her appearance with Diaz-Balart, Ainsley also admitted that, under Trump, ICE has been arresting illegal aliens at twice the rate as under Biden. And, in her appearance on Morning Joe, she had also noted that the Mexican government, fearing tariffs, has been using its military to keep migrants away from the U.S. border.
And in a Wednesday afternoon appearance on Chris Jansing Reports, Ainsley informed viewers that the overwhelming majority of immigrants arrested by ICE since Trump took office have either been convicted of a crime or have pending charges, which contrasts with the liberal media narrative that half are not criminals. Out of 32,809 arrested, it was shown on screen that 14,111 were convicted criminals while 9,980 had criminal charges pending.
Transcripts follow:
MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart Reports
March 11, 2025
11:29 a.m. Eastern
JOSE DIAZ-BALART: NBC News has exclusive reporting, ICE agents deported fewer people last month than during the same month a year ago under the Biden administration, and it comes as February's border crossings marked the lowest month since records began 25 years ago. NBC's Julia Ainsley joins us now. Julia, good morning. What more did you learn?
JULIA AINSLEY: Well, this is interesting, Jose, because we've heard those arrest numbers that you've just put up. Those were the border numbers. And we know that's something the Trump administration has really been able to boast about. They've been able to arrest 20,000 migrants. That's an over 110 percent increase since Biden's monthly average, and then, of course, you have those low border numbers there, but when it comes to deportations, that's been something that's been really hard to figure out. And, of course, that's what Trump ran on -- not mass arrests but on mass deportations.
And my colleague Laurie Strickler and I -- we got exclusive data from ICE that showed that actually in February 2025, there were around 11,000 deportations. In February of 2024, there were over 12,000 deportations. Now, that seems like a small number, but when Trump campaigned on millions and millions being deported. It is significant to show exactly how successful they've been. Now, some of the reasons why those numbers aren't higher and why they were higher under Biden is because more people were crossing the border. So deportations included people who were stopped by CBP at the border where it's easier to find immigrants and arrest them than in the interior of the country and be deported. So that's one thing.
The other, of course, is that they haven't been able to deport people as quickly as they would like mainly because of a cash issue. They haven't been able to find the detention space to be able to hold and deport as many people as they're arresting.
DIAZ-BALART: Yeah, I mean, Julia, the fact that many, if not most, of the deportations traditionally occurred at the border when they crossed over, if there are very few or almost none -- no one crossing over, you know, that's going to be -- take a -- to hit on the numbers. ...
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MSNBC's Morning Joe
March 12, 2025
6:49 a.m. Eastern
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Last week, during his joint address to Congress, President Trump falsely claimed tens of millions of dead people over 100 years olds. Listen to a part of what he said.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. (editing jump) But a lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does -- and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country.
BRZEZINSKI: Now, according to the White House transcript, you heard the President said, quote, "...it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does -- and it really hurts Social Security..." "Nobody does" what? "Anything about it"? Well, if a dead 100-year-old was receiving a check in 2025, it stands to reason that, back in 2016, when Trump was President, that same 91-year-old would also have been receiving a check. Why didn't anyone do anything about it back then?
Or when President Trump rails against USAID, calling it "wasteful" or part of a "liberal agenda," back in 2017, his own administration requested $37 billion for the program, saying it "...prioritizes the well-being of Americans" and "advances U.S. economic interests." Was it a liberal agenda back then?
And then there's President Trump's claims of being tough on undocumented immigration while suggesting former President Biden was weak on the border. But now, new exclusive reporting from NBC News shows Trump actually deported fewer people last month than Biden did one year ago. Joining us now, the reporter behind that story, NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Also with us, the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitali.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And, Julia, two different stories going on here. One is that deportations are lower but, also -- as you also have reported -- border crossings have plummeted.
JULIA AINSLEY: Yeah, so what's going on here, Joe, is that we've heard a lot about the fact that border crossings have gone down, and arrests have gone up, but it's been really hard to get our hands on data about deportations. And, of course, Trump campaigned on mass deportations. In his inaugural address, he said he would deport millions and millions. He never campaigned on mass arrests. And, as we've reported here, not everyone who gets arrested by ICE gets deported. Some of them are released, some of them are not detained -- not deportable -- and so, as it turns out, there's actually fewer people who were deported in February 2025 -- the first full month of Trump being in office this term -- compared to February 2024 under Biden.
A big reason for that drop, though, and why it's lower under Trump than it was under Biden is because Customs and Border Protection are arresting fewer people at the border. It's much easier to deport people right after they've crossed. We have a pathway there called "expedited removal." Biden used this, too, where they're basically deported very quickly rather than being in the United States and facing that years long backlog in immigration courts. And so it's easier to deport them if they're arrested by border patrol.
(...)
Also, Mexico is doing a lot. Mexico does not want tariffs. They're in a position where they're trying to do a lot to cooperate with the U.S. on immigration and to combat fentanyl, so they've increased interdictions as well. That's also bringing the numbers down at the border. But I do think it's important that we continue to look at this data on deportations because it's something that they're not putting out. This is something that we obtained here at NBC. We also found that over half of those who were deported were noncriminal, which of course goes against what the Trump administration said they would do by focusing on the worst of the worst for deportations.
ALI VITALI: Yeah, Julia. That bucks the promise that you and I were talking about last week when you were here with more reporting on this topic....
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MSNBC's Chris Jansing Reports
March 12, 2025
2:02 p.m. Eastern
JULIA AINSLEY: Another thing we learned is the number of arrests since Trump took office has been about 33,000 -- just under that -- and about half of those are convicted criminals. You can see there those with pending criminal charges and then those who are only violating immigration laws. The other thing I have to point out, Chris, the number they did not say even though we asked this repeatedly, is how many people has President Trump actually deported since he took office? That's something we've reported here at NBC News. We were able to find that, in the month of February, only 11,000 migrants were deported while, in the 2024 February, there were over 12,000 migrants deported. A big reason for that of course is the drop at the border, but it also shows that Trump has not been able to deport as many migrants as he promised.
