Inside Trump's plan for mass deportations - and who wants to stop him
Item
1 of 2 Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President
Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, as seen
from Piedras Negras, Mexico, February 29, 2024. REUTERS/Go
Nakamura/File Photo
[1/2]Republican
presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump visits
the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, as seen from Piedras
Negras, Mexico, February 29, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File
- Trump's deportation push expected to utilize military, diplomats and other government workers
- Immigrant advocates warn of costly, divisive, and inhumane consequences
- Trump's plan to use 1798 Alien Enemies Act could draw legal challenges
WASHINGTON,
Nov 6 (Reuters) - Donald Trump is expected to mobilize agencies across
the U.S. government to help him deport record numbers of immigrants,
building on efforts in his first term to tap all available resources and
pressure so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions to cooperate, according to
six former Trump officials and allies.
Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in a
stunning political comeback, Edison Research projected, telling supporters America had given him an "unprecedented and powerful mandate."
Trump
backers - including some who could enter his second administration -
anticipate the Republican president-elect will call on everyone from the
U.S. military to diplomats overseas to turn his campaign promise of
mass deportations into a reality. The effort would include cooperation
with Republican-led states and use federal funding as leverage against
resistant jurisdictions.
Trump recaptured the White House vowing
a vast immigration crackdown.
The centerpiece of his reelection bid was a promise to deport record
numbers of immigrants, an operation Trump’s running mate JD Vance
estimated could remove 1 million people per year.
Immigrant advocates warn that Trump’s deportation effort would be costly, divisive and inhumane, leading to
family separations
and devastating communities. Edison Research exit polls showed 39% of
voters said most immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported
while 56% said they should be allowed to apply for legal status.
Trump
struggled to ramp up deportations during his 2017-2021 presidency. When
counting both immigration removals and faster “returns” to Mexico by
U.S. border officials, Biden
deported more immigrants in fiscal year 2023 than any Trump year, according to government data.
But
a deportation operation targeting millions would require many more
officers, detention beds and immigration court judges. American
Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group, estimated the cost of
deporting 13 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally as $968 billion
over a little more than a decade.
Tom
Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) expected to join the new administration, said in a
late October interview that the scale of the deportations would hinge on
potential officers and detention space.
“It all depends on what the budget is,” he said.
While
the incoming Trump administration could benefit from experience gained
during his first term, it could again encounter resistance from
ideologically opposed government employees, including officers that
screen migrants for asylum.
The
American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant advocacy groups have been
preparing for court battles if Trump again tests the bounds of his legal
authority.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who led the fight against Trump’s contentious
family separation policy,
said more than 15 lawyers focused on immigration with the
organization’s national office spent the year readying for the
possibility of a Trump return.
“We
definitely need to be coordinated and have more resources, because I
think they will come in much more prepared,” Gelernt said.
The
State Department in particular could be one place where Trump acts more
aggressively than during his first term, several Trump backers said.
A
key factor will be whether other countries will accept their citizens,
an issue Trump faced with limited success during his first term. The
Trump administration also
struggled at times
to convince other nations in the region - including Mexico - to take
steps to stop migrants from moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ken
Cuccinelli, former acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security under Trump, said the State Department was a
“roadblock” for immigration enforcement and that aggressive appointees
will be key.
Christopher
Landau, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2019-2021, recently
said he was frustrated with the reluctance of some U.S. diplomats to
tackle immigration enforcement.
"Nobody
really thought that was their problem,” Landau said in an October panel
discussion by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors
restricting immigration.
About
half of ICE’s 21,000 employees are part of its Homeland Security
Investigations unit, which focuses on transnational crime such as drug
smuggling and child exploitation rather than immigration enforcement.
Several Trump allies said the unit would need to spend more time on
immigration.
HSI
has distanced itself from ICE’s immigration work in recent years,
saying fear of deportation made it harder for its investigators to build
trust in immigrant communities.
Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's first-term immigration agenda,
said
in 2023 that National Guard troops from cooperative states could
potentially be deployed to resistant states to assist with deportations,
which would likely trigger legal battles.
Trump
plans to use a 1798 wartime statute known as the Alien Enemies Act to
rapidly deport alleged gang members, an action that would almost
certainly be challenged in court.
The
law has been used three times, according to the left-leaning Brennan
Center for Justice: the War of 1812, World War One, and World War Two,
when it was employed to justify internment camps for people of Japanese,
German and Italian descent.
The Brennan Center and others have called on Congress to repeal the law.
"Many
fear that a second Trump administration would seek to use this law to
justify indefinite detention and remove people from the country swiftly
and without judicial review," Naureen Shah, the ACLU's deputy director
of government affairs, wrote in late October.
George
Fishman, a former DHS official under Trump, said the Trump
administration would need to prove the immigrants were sent by a foreign
government.
“I worry a little about overpromising,” Fishman said.
Reporting
by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco;
Editing by Mary Milliken, Aurora Ellis and Daniel Wallis