Even though Trump defied a court order to make deportations, he’s still not going to deport as the 15 to 20 million people he claimed during his presidential campaign. In fact, if prediction markets are correct, it will be far fewer.
On Friday, Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 Venezuelans. A federal judge ordered to pause the deportations while the court reviewed the deportations. Trump’s team put the planes in the air anyway, and they landed in El Salvador on Sunday.
Trump’s challenge to the federal court system arrives as prediction traders revise their deportation forecasts downward. Commercial prediction market platform Kalshi has gone from predicting almost 700,000 deportations in Trump’s first year to about 430,000.
“The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict. Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear — federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.
Big stories don’t always cause big price changes
The deportation market’s biggest correction was from Feb. 15 to Feb. 17. It began with a Washington Post story reporting that ICE’s deportations were going slower than expected. At the same time, ICE reduced the frequency of its deportation reports, signaling a lack of confidence in the daily and weekly deportation figures that Trump hopes to maximize.
Kalshi’s deportation market fell from forecasting almost 700,000 first-year deportations to just over 400,000 two days later. Prediction markets responded strongly to news of a systemic issue and not to concerns that Trump’s aggressive immigration policies could increase deportations.
The deportation market is among the clearest contrasts between prediction markets and pundits. A Washington Examiner article argued that even though Trump’s deportation levels were lower than Biden’s, the article emphasized the 1.4 million illegal immigrants who could be deported, leaving a first-year estimate ambiguous and open to interpretation.
Prediction markets aren’t perfect, but the forecasts of a high-volume and active market add more clarity than political commentary alone.
