From February 29, 2024, when Trump visited the border and promoted his immigration plan, including his plan to deport millions of migrants living in the U.S. without legal status, through March 24:

• Fox News dedicated just 7 minutes of coverage to the former president’s draconian plan, airing just two segments about the plan.
• CNN aired 21 minutes of coverage of Trump's mass deportation plan, while MSNBC covered the plan for 19 minutes.

During Trump’s border visit he reiterated his plans for mass deportation and accused Biden of having “the blood of countless innocent victims” on his hands, in addition to continuing to push the unsubstantiated narrative that there is a migrant crime wave. 

Over the last few months, Trump has touted his plan to execute the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history to remove Joe Biden’s illegals and murderers.” 

As part of his proposed “deportation operation,” Trump has promised to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel supposed “gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members,” seemingly without due process. People living in the U.S. without authorization would be held in “detention camps” as they await deportation. 

As part of his broader immigration plans, he has also promised to end DACA, suspend the refugee resettlement program, and reinstate a travel ban from some Muslim-majority countries.

During his February 29 interview on Hannity, Trump said his plans included offering “immunity” to police “to give the job they have to do.” He added, “It's going to be the local police are going to turn them over, and we're going to have to move them back to their country.”

Todd Schulte, the president of immigration and criminal justice advocacy group FWD.us, said the “xenophobic demagoguery” seeded in Trump’s mass deportation plan would violate “the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-border Americans alike." 

The first segment came from the Trump Hannity interview in Eagle Pass during his February 29 border visit. In Fox News’ lone segment about Trump’s plan since the Hannity interview, Fox & Friends co-host Will Cain said that if Trump were to deport millions of migrants it would be “a source of hyperbolic media fodder,” adding, “I actually think the American public is in favor of, you know, enforcement of our laws.”

Then fellow co-host Pete Hegseth likened Trump’s immigration plan to President Dwight Eisenhower’s removal of millions of immigrants in the 1950s, explaining that “it was very controversial because some of them were here legally.” 

“That’ll be the challenge in this one [Trump’s deportation plan] too. Because people will say, ‘Well they claimed asylum, so they have a legal claim,’” Hegseth said, before adding, “They’re going to have to be real tough to deal with this illegality.”

In total, the network aired just 7 minutes of coverage about the plan.

A few mainstream news personalities have informed viewers about Trump's unprecedented mass deportation plan. CNN aired 21 minutes of coverage about the plan, while MSNBC covered it for 19 minutes.

In his February 29 episode, Chris Hayes plainly explained the reality of what Trump's mass deportation plan would entail. 

“Donald Trump is wrong about migrants,” Hayes said. “He’s proposing what amounts to a system — get this — of national martial law that would deport 8 million people with the National Guards of right-wing states being brought in to do it.”

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” within close proximity of any of the terms “raid,” “round up,” “restrict,” “bar,” or “uproot” or any variation of any of the terms “deport,” “detain,” “remove,” “crackdown,” or “expel” and also within close proximity of any of the terms “illegals,” “alien,” “million,” “people,” “undocumented,” “ICE,” “FBI,” “DEA,” “Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” “Drug Enforcement Administration,” “National Guard,” “agent,” or “Eisenhower” or any variation of any of the terms “migrant,” “migrate,” “immigrant,” “immigrate,” “emigrant,” or “emigrate” from February 29, 2024, when Trump visited the border and promoted his immigration plan, including his plan to deport millions of migrants living in the U.S. without legal status, through March 24, 2024.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when Trump's mass deportation plan was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the plan. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the plan with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned Trump's plan without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about Trump's plan scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.