President-elect Donald Trump vowed to initiate “the largest deportation operation in American history” upon assuming office on January 20, 2025. He spoke about the possibility of keeping TikTok operational in the U.S.
In a speech at Turning Point Action’s AmericaFest conference in Arizona on Sunday, Trump declared, “On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign a historic slate of executive orders to close our border to illegal aliens and stop the invasion of our country.”
He added that, on the same day, the U.S. would begin the most considerable deportation effort in the nation’s history, surpassing even President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback.
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump, 78, has consistently pledged to carry out a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He has tapped Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as his border czar designee to lead the operation. Homan spoke earlier at the conference, echoing Trump’s tough stance on immigration.
Trump also touched on his campaign’s success with young voters, citing his engagement with TikTok, despite the platform’s ongoing regulatory issues in the U.S. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, faces a January 19, 2025, deadline to divest or risk a ban from the Google and Apple app stores in the U.S.
Reflecting on his TikTok engagement, Trump said, “I think we’re going to have to start thinking about TikTok. We did go on TikTok. We had a great response with billions of views… and it was so beautiful to see.” He added, “I said, we got to keep this sucker around a little while,” hinting at a potential strategy for the platform’s future in the U.S.
