Broadcast TV news and top newspapers have failed to adequately cover former President Donald Trump’s severe and unpopular mass deportation plan. While Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, has regularly referenced his mass deportation plan, broadcast news shows aired only 2 segments and the top five national newspapers by circulation published only 5 articles about the plan in the five months since Trump laid out his plan in late September.

From September 20, 2023, when Trump laid out his mass deportation plan during a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, through February 25, broadcast news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC have spent just over 4 minutes covering the plan. The only full report on the plan was from NBC's Today. There was a back and forth about the plan on CBS’ Face the Nation when Margaret Brennan asked a question about the recent bipartisan border policy bill’s effect on the plan to Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). ABC did not air a full segment about Trump's plan, only offering two short mentions in segments on related topics.

Over the same period, 3 of the top 5 U.S. newspapers, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post, published only 5 articles about Trump’s plan -- 2 from the New York Times, 2 from the Post, and 1 from the Los Angeles Times. The article in the Los Angeles Times was primarily about Trump's "Project 2025," but mentioned his immigration plan in the lead paragraph. The New York Times along with the Washington Post each ran in-depth, front-page pieces on Trump's plan, while USA Today and The Wall Street Journal each ignored it.

After hinting at it during his speech at CPAC in March of 2023, Trump began laying out details of an extreme immigration plan during a September 2023 rally in Iowa. Trump pledged to constrain immigration in an unprecedented fashion if he were to return to office in 2025, saying “following the Eisenhower Model … we’ll carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” 

Over the next several weeks, white nationalist and former Trump aide Stephen Miller and the Trump campaign made it clear what a second Trump Administration's immigration policy would look like. 

At the center of the far-reaching plan – which includes ending DACA, suspending the refugee program, and reinstating the travel ban from Muslim-majority countries along with various other extreme steps – is a “deportation operation” which promises to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel supposed “gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members,” seemingly without due process. According to sources close to Trump, National Guard troops and local police officers would be deputized to help ICE shift from targeted arrests to sweeping raids in “largely minority areas.” Additionally, undocumented immigrants would be held in “detention camps” while they await deportation. Todd Schulte, the president of immigration and criminal justice advocacy group FWD.us said the plan "[violates] the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-border Americans alike."

National news media are continuing a pattern of repeatedly ignoring and sanitizing Trump's extreme comments and plans. Trump has been abundantly clear about his intentions to implement xenophobic, 20th-century immigration policies, and national news outlets must do a better job informing viewers and readers of Trump's unpopular, cruel, and draconian policy plan.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press 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 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 the terms “migrant,” “migrate,” “immigrant,” “immigrate,” “emigrant,” or “emigrate” from September 20, 2023, when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump laid out his plans to deport millions of people during a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, through February 25, 2024.

We also searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” within the same headline or lead paragraphs of “raid,” “round up,” “restrict,” “bar,” or “uproot” or any variation of the terms “deport,” “detain,” “remove,” “crackdown,” or “expel” and also within the same headline or lead paragraphs as 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 the terms “migrant,” “migrate,” “immigrant,” “immigrate,” “emigrant,” or “emigrate” from September 20, 2023, through February 25, 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.

Finally, we included print news articles, which we defined as instances when Trump's plan was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraphs in the A section of the paper. We included editorial and op-eds but not letters-to-the-editor.