Facts are technically correct but framed in a way that likely leads to a wrong impression. Learn more in Methodology.
Federal government records (State/DOJ/DHS designations, OFAC/Treasury listings) and DHS/ICE operational records/public announcements confirm FTO designations and a large-scale deportation operation was initiated.
Official State Department records show that on February 20, 2025, the United States designated several major international criminal organizations—including Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Cartel del Noreste, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cartel del Golfo, Carteles Unidos, Mara Salvatrucha (MS‑13), and Tren de Aragua—as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 14157 and section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.[1][2] These groups are widely recognized as key transnational trafficking networks, so the first part of the statement has substantial factual support. After returning to office, President Trump directed a large-scale immigration crackdown, with ICE planning detention capacity for roughly 100,000 people and targeting up to 1 million removals per year, and administration rhetoric repeatedly describing this as the "largest deportation operation in American history."[3][4] However, independent analyses and even sympathetic assessments note that 2025 removals (on the order of roughly 500,000–600,000 formal deportations plus claimed self‑deportations) remain well below the scale of President Eisenhower’s 1954 "Operation Wetback," which the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported as causing about 1.1 million people to leave the U.S. and which historians still characterize as the largest mass deportation in U.S. history.[5][6] As of early 2026, evidence therefore shows a very large and aggressive deportation campaign, but not yet one that surpasses prior historical operations in realized scale.
Overall, the claim is misleading: the designation of major criminal cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations is accurate and documented, but describing the current deportation drive as "the largest mass deportation operation in American history" overstates what has actually occurred so far relative to past U.S. deportation campaigns, especially Operation Wetback in 1954.