If Donald Trump is re-elected president, he has promised mass deportation of people living in the United States without legal permission. Deporting millions of illegal immigrants would pose serious legal and practical problems, experts say. The total cost of deporting a million or more people is estimated to be tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars.
While the Trump campaign has mixed answers to the question of how many people will be deported, vice presidential candidate James Vance gave one number in an interview with ABC News: “Let’s start with one million.”
While the pledge has become a key element of Trump’s platform (banners reading “Mass Deportation Now!” have appeared at his rallies), experts say deporting so many people poses serious legal and practical problems. brings.
What are the legal issues?
According to the latest figures from the Department of Homeland Security and the Pew Research Center, there are currently about 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. This indicator has been relatively stable since 2005.
Most of them are permanent residents: almost four fifths have been in the country for more than ten years.
Immigrants who do not have legal status in the United States have the right to a hearing before deportation. The increase in deportations will further strain an already underdeveloped immigration justice system.
Most national immigrants enter the deportation system through local law enforcement, rather than through encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. However, many large US cities and counties have passed laws limiting local police cooperation with ICE.
Trump’s campaign has vowed to crack down on these “sanctuaries,” but the variety of U.S. local, state and federal laws complicates the situation.
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington, said cooperation between ICE and local authorities is becoming a “critical” aspect of any mass deportation program.
As an example, Bush-Joseph cited a statement issued in early August by the sheriffs of Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida, in which the sheriffs said they would not send deputies to carry out any mass deportation plans.
“There are many who will not cooperate with Trump’s mass deportation plan.” he said. “That makes the situation much more complicated.
Any mass deportation program could quickly face a wave of legal challenges from immigration and human rights activists.
But a 2022 Supreme Court ruling means courts can’t ban immigration enforcement policies, meaning they will continue to operate even if problems arise in the legal system.
Image: In areas far from the border, police often go after suspects with a criminal record, rather than immigrants who have just arrived in the United States.
So is it logistically feasible?
Even if the US administration were to legally carry out its mass deportation plans, the government would still face major logistical problems. Deportation efforts during the Biden administration have focused on immigrants detained at the border. The majority of immigrants deported from remote areas of the US and near the border are individuals with criminal histories or who pose a threat to national security.
Deportations of people arrested on American soil (as opposed to those at the border) have not topped 100,000 for decades, but peaked at 230,000 in the early years of the Obama administration.
“Increasing that number to a million per year requires an enormous amount of resources, and such resources may not be available.” Aaron Rayhlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, said in an interview with the BBC.
Experts say ICE lacks the 20,000 agents and support staff to track at least some of the numbers the Trump campaign has released.
Raihlin-Melnick added that the deportation process is long and complicated and only begins when an illegal immigrant is identified and arrested. Detainees must then be placed in an “alternative detention” program or long-term detention system before being brought before an immigration judge. Only then will those caught be deported from the US, a process that requires the diplomatic cooperation of the host country.
“ICE cannot afford to investigate millions of people.” – said Reichlin-Melnik.
Trump said he would call in the US National Guard and other armed forces to help with the deportations. Historically, the U.S. military’s role in immigration matters has been limited to support functions at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Aside from the military and “using local law enforcement,” Trump did not mention other ways to implement such a mass deportation plan.
In an interview with Time magazine earlier this year, the former president said he would “not rule out” building new immigration detention centers and would take measures to protect police from harassment by “liberal or progressive groups.”
Incentives for state and local police agencies to participate, he added, would leave those who don’t “with no money.”
“We have to do it.’ Trump said. “This is not a sustainable problem for our country.”
Eric Ruark, director of research at NumberUSA, a group that advocates for stronger immigration enforcement, said any domestic deportation program would only work if it was combined with stronger border enforcement.
“This has to be treated as a priority or little progress will be made.” he said.
In addition, Ruark said there is a need to strengthen measures against companies that hire illegal immigrants: “They come to work.
Figure: Even a small increase in the number of immigrants removed from the US would require significant investment and additional resources.
The financial and political costs of deportation
According to expert estimates, the total cost of deporting a million or more people is tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars.
In 2023, ICE’s transportation and deportation budget was $420 million. That year, the agency deported just over 140,000 people.
Thousands of immigrants are awaiting trial or deportation. Trump’s campaign staff plans to build large camps to house them.
A significant increase in the number of pick-up flights is also required, which may require the deployment of military aircraft to expand the available capacity.
Even a small expansion in any of these areas can result in huge costs.
““Even a small change can cost tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars.” said Mr. Rayhlin-Melnyk.
In addition to the spending, Trump has also promised a number of important border security measures, including continued construction of a wall on the US southern border, a naval blockade to prevent fentanyl from entering the country, and the deployment of thousands of troops to the country. border.
Adam Isaacson, a migration and border expert at the Office on Latin America in Washington, said the “horrifying footage” of mass deportations could also cost the Trump administration politically.
“Painful images of families being separated from each other and crying children are shown on television. It’s all incredibly bad press.” he said.
Have there been mass deportations before?
Under the previous Trump administration, nearly 1.5 million people were deported from both the border and the interior of the United States over four years.
Statistics show the Biden administration is on track to deport nearly 1.1 million people by February 2024.
Over three million people were deported during the two terms of the Obama administration (Biden was vice president), leading some immigration reform advocates to label Barack Obama the “deporter in chief.”
The only historical event comparable to the mass deportation program occurred in 1954, when approximately 1.3 million people were deported. However, historians dispute this figure.
Under 34th President Dwight Eisenhower, the program faced serious public opposition, including the deportation of some US citizens and a lack of funding. The process slowed considerably by 1955.
Immigration experts said the operation was targeting Mexican nationals at the time. It cannot be compared to the current program of mass deportations due to the lack of appropriate legal procedures.
“(those deported in the 1950s) were free Mexican men,” MPI representative Kathleen Bush-Joseph said.
“Most people crossing the border now come from Mexico or even northern Central America. It makes it significantly more difficult for them to come back.” – he added. “Today’s situation cannot be compared with the past.”
