WASHINGTON—The White House has responded to reporting on its immigration messaging, stating that nothing substantial has changed in its immigration enforcement agenda.

Axios reported on March 10 that White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair told House Republicans at a retreat in Florida to speak more about the removal of illegal immigrants who are violent criminals and less about mass deportations.

When asked about the report, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Epoch Times in a March 10 email that “nobody is changing the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.”

“President [Donald] Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities,” Jackson said, noting that DHS’s data show a large percentage of its recent deportees have criminal records.

By itself, unauthorized presence in the United States is a civil offense rather than a criminal infraction.

Illegal immigrants who have committed violent criminal offenses are a smaller chunk of the population unlawfully present in the United States, which the Pew Research Center estimated at 14 million in 2023.

Blair took to social media after the Axios story was published, writing on X that “Republicans want to keep deporting the violent/criminal illegals.”

“Republicans will get the violent criminals out,” he added.

Encounters at the southwest land border have cratered under Trump, falling from more than 96,000 in December 2024 to fewer than 12,000 in September 2025, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Pew’s preliminary data suggest illegal immigrant numbers dwindled under Trump.

In December 2025, DHS estimated 2.5 million illegal immigrants left the United States under the Trump administration, a combination of over 600,000 deportations and roughly 1.9 million self-deportations.

In recent weeks and months, some Republicans have expressed their support for mass deportations.

On March 4, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) wrote on X that “mass deportations are non-negotiable,” adding, “If you’re here illegally, the only process you’re due is deportation.”

In late January, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) praised the administration’s immigration policies, writing, “We can, and must, continue mass deportations.”

“Deportations are nothing new—we’ve been doing this for years, under many different administrations,” he said.

“But all of a sudden Democrats have decided they don’t think we—as a sovereign nation—have the right to enforce our own borders.”

Schmitt reiterated the stance in a March 11 post, “Mass migration must be met with mass deportations.”

Democrats and Republicans are currently in a standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been shut down for nearly a month.

Last week, the president also announced his plan to replace DHS Secretary Kristi Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).

Noem is set to be the special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a new Western Hemisphere security initiative.