Donald Trump has vowed that once he takes office, he will stop the open borders policies that have allowed millions of illegal aliens to invade this country. His decisive victory on Tuesday is seen as a mandate from the American people to carry out that promise.
Trump has called for the “largest mass deportation program in history.”
But what might that look like?
Analysis from The American Immigration Council considers the roughly 11 million people who as of 2022 lacked permanent legal status and what it says are the additional 2.3 million people who cross the border illegally from January 2023 to April 2024.
AIC estimates the cost of a one-time mass deportation for those two groups to exceed $315 billion.
“We wish to emphasize this figure is a highly conservative estimate,” AIC writes.
There are different ways to go about deportation says Ira Mehlman, the media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
"The Trump-Vance administration has a clear mandate to reverse the absolutely dangerous policies of the Biden-Harris administration on immigration. They need to begin by securing the border, and that includes construction of the wall that President Biden stopped on his first day in office.”
That’s just a starting point.
“Enforcing our immigration laws in the interior of the country, going after sanctuary jurisdictions that entice illegal aliens to come to the United States … there’s just a whole list of things that the president has the authority to do,” Mehlman said.
Go after the worst first
There are ways to go about the deportation process. A one-time operation is unlikely. The idea that some local governments may not be on board with Trump could also hinder deportation.
"Obviously we want to get rid of the worst of the worst immediately. Certainly, that's going to be a tall order. You have to go out and find them. There needs to be pressure on local law enforcement and these sanctuary jurisdictions to cooperate that when they arrest somebody, and ICE says we want them, if you're not going to send them to prison for something, you should turn them over to ICE so they could be removed from the country,” Mehlman said.
