Ana Galvañ for NPR

President Trump kicked off his second term vowing to deport a record number of people from the U.S. But deportation — a cumbersome process generally involving an arrest, detention, a removal order from a judge and finally a flight out of the U.S. — can take months or years.

"Each of those pieces can be extremely difficult and complicated depending on where someone is, who they are, what types of protection claims they might have, what types of resources the U.S. government has," said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, lawyer and policy analyst with the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Much like his predecessors, Trump has taken steps to change how law enforcement officials track, find, detain and remove those in the country without legal status. He's also broadened the categories of people eligible for deportation.

"The sands are shifting underneath our feet," said Eric Welsh, partner at Reeves Immigration Law Group in Los Angeles, which represents individuals and businesses on issues related to immigration status and visas.

NPR spoke to immigration experts and lawyers and reviewed government documents to break down the steps of the U.S. deportation process and its cost. This is meant as a general breakdown of the process and not a rule for each individual's circumstances.

Step 1: Identifying who is removable

In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told reporters it had arrested 32,000 people since...

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