WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has defended the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals, saying his administration draining the swamp by sending home fraudsters, cheaters, globalists and deep state bureaucrats.

Trump has made the mass deportation of undocumented migrants a key policy.

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington on Saturday, he said, "The fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep state bureaucrats are being sent packing."

"Illegal alien criminals are being sent home. We’re draining the swamp and restoring government by the people," he said.

As of 2022, unauthorised immigrants represented 3.3 per cent of the total US population and 23 per cent of the foreign-born population, according to Pew Research Centre.

US President Donald Trump has moved to overhaul parts of the US immigration system since returning to office and promised "mass deportations" and arrests.

The Department of Homeland Security posted on X that, as of February 3, its agents had arrested 8,768 people.

Three batches comprising a total of 332 Indians have already been sent back to India from the US amid an intensified crackdown by the Trump administration against illegal immigrants.

A group of Indians deported from the US recently arrived in Panama after President Jose Raul Mulino agreed that his country would become a "bridge" country for deportees.