Going Big on Deportation: The Million-Strong Agenda - USA
Potentially executing the removal of a million immigrants is within Trump's administrative powers, given the correct circumstances and resources.
In the event of a second term for Donald Trump, he's made it clear he intends to drag millions of individuals out of the United States without legal permission. And according to his VP nominee, JD Vance, that number could start at a whopping million. He spilled the beans during an interview with ABC News, calling out Kamala Harris for allegedly failing in this area.
However, experts are quick to flag the elephant in the room - legal and practical hurdles aplenty.
Legal hurdles looming
America's undocumented immigrant population clocks in at around 11 million, a figure steady since 2005. Most have been here for the long haul, with nearly 80% having over a decade under their belts. Not exactly guest stars, they still have the legal right to a court hearing before being kicked out.
A massive push on deportations is bound to strain the already overflowing immigration court system. Many of these immigrants end up in the deportation process, not thanks to ICE agents, but local law enforcement. But many big cities and counties have sanctuary-like policies that limit the cops' cooperation with ICE.
The Trump team has promised to go after these so-called sanctuary cities, but the mixed bag of local, state, and federal laws makes this tougher than a forkful of spaghetti. Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy maven at the Migration Policy Institute, points out that cooperation between ICE and local officials is crucial for any mass-scale operation. Without it, tracking down and swooping in on those without papers becomes more like a needle-in-a-haystack kind of situation.
In early August, sheriffs in Florida's Broward and Palm Beach counties announced they wouldn't play ball in any mass deportation games. And if history is any indication, many other local officials would likely follow suit, making mass deportations all the more challenging.
Legal challenges from immigration and human rights groups are also on the horizon. But a 2022 Supreme Court ruling means courts can't block immigration enforcement policies while these challenges are being ironed out, leaving deportations free to proceed even while the lawyers squabble.
But, can it work logistically?
Even if the U.S. government could indeed get the green light to kickstart mass deportations, the logistics would be a bear of a task.
The Biden administration has focused mostly on deporting people recently snagged at the border. Those deeper in the country are usually those with criminal records or viewed as national security threats. Random workplace raids - a staple under Trump's rule - were nixed in 2021.
Raising the annual deportation number to a million would need a Herculean effort, with resources likely far from sufficient. The 20,000 ICE agents and support staff won't magically grow to meet the challenge. Tracking down, arresting, processing - it's a lengthy process. And with the current system already facing lengthy backlogs, things might take a turn for the chaotic.
Trump's suggested solutions include using the National Guard or other military forces and creating incentives for police departments that play ball. But detailed plans for making it all work remain scarce.
An Economic Goliath
Some number crunchers estimate the financial costs of deporting a million or more people could run into the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars. For instance, ICE's $420 million transportation and deportation budget in 2023 managed to move just over 140,000 people.
Detaining thousands of immigrants while they await court hearings or deportations would require a significant expansion of detention centers. Building large camps for housing them has been floated as a possibility.
The number of removal flights would need to skyrocket, potentially requiring the use of military aircraft to cope with the increased volume. Even minor changes would require hefty investments, with major changes carrying a hefty price tag.
All this comes at a time when Trump has pledged more border enforcement efforts like continuing work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, setting up a naval blockade to block fentanyl, and sending thousands of troops to the border.
Will history repeat itself?
With Trump's first term seeing around 1.5 million people deported, and the Biden administration expected to hit that mark by 2024, some are whispering echoes of the past.
During Obama's reign, over 3 million people were booted out, earning him the moniker "deporter-in-chief." But the only historical comparison to a mass deportation program might be Operation Wetback, under President Dwight Eisenhower. Controversial, to say the least, some estimates suggest it deported up to 1.3 million people. But historians have question marks over this figure. The program faced significant pushback, partially because some US citizens were inadvertently booted, and it was eventually mothballed due to lack of funding.
Comparing Operation Wetback to today's situation is like comparing apples to oranges, says Kathleen Bush-Joseph of the Migration Policy Institute. Most undocumented migrants today hail from countries other than Mexico or northern Central America, making deportations that much trickier. As a result, the situations aren't truly comparable.
In the event of a second term for Donald Trump, he aims to escalate deportations, potentially affecting over a million individuals without legal permission, as suggested by his Vice Presidential nominee, JD Vance. However, legal and practical hurdles loom large, with experts warning that a massive push on deportations could overwhelm the already congested immigration court system and strain resources due to the absence of detailed plans for execution.
