Donald J. Trump’s vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and to build a wall between the United States and Mexico is seldom out of the news. However, less attention has been paid to how the GOP nominee for President would achieve his aim.
In a recent article the New York Times, a news organization that has been critical of Trump, wrote he has “typically provided scant details” on how he would meet his aims and his policies on immigration fail to add up.
Although Trump has promised to provide more details about his immigration plans, major questions remain.
Trump has outlined a number of key immigration proposals that were noted on CNN, namely:
- The United States would build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.
- He would impose a nationwide system to verify workers’ legal status, increase the number of immigrations and customs enforcement agents threefold and put in place a tracking system to identify people who remain in the U.S. when their visas expire.
- He would reverse a U.S. law that gives American citizenship to any child born in the United States, regardless of whether the child’s parents are undocumented immigrants. Every year about four million children of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. become citizens because they are born here, states The Los Angeles Times.
- Trump would suspend the issuance of any new green cards, providing a pause for U.S. employers to hire from a “domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers.”
- He would remove about 11 million undocumented immigrants, deporting them to their native countries.
The deportation plan would present a challenge on a monumental scale and be a radical immigration reform. Deportations in recent years have peaked at about 400,000 annually, and 11 million would be unprecedented. Experts have warned just finding the immigrants alone would be difficult, and police officers would have to demand proof of residency or citizenship during random stops or traffic stops. It’s a scenario that threatens the development of a police state, critics say.
Michael Chertoff, who oversaw an increase in immigration enforcement when he was a Secretary of Homeland Security under former President George W. Bush, told the New York Times it was impossible to envisage the deportation of 11 million people without the apparatus of a police state.
Large scale raids would probably be required and the Obama administration’s focus on deporting those who had committed crimes would likely be muddied.
The New York Times article raises the prospect of a mass internment camp building program. At present, there are about 34,000 beds. There would need to be as many as 300,000, it states.
There’s also the issue of the judicial backlog. Presently, there are 57 immigration courts that face backlogs of as long as two years for a hearing. The federal government would face opening up dozens of emergency courts and appointing hundreds of new judges.
These logistical hurdles just relate to the deportation plans. The funding and building of the wall would be another massive headache and Trump’s insistence that Mexico would pay for it appears to be less than credible.
Recently, an article in Business Insider warned that in addition to the incredible human costs related to the deportation plan, losing 11 million workers and potential employees could lead to the loss of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy.
If you or a loved one is facing deportation, it’s important to talk to an experienced Austin immigration attorney as soon as possible. Contact the attorneys at Peek Law Group , to help you better understand your options and start the process of securing legal status in the United States. Call us at (512) 399-2311.