By Lori Lee
NDG Contributing Writer
After focusing much of his presidential campaign on immigration reform, and now making early appointments to U.S. Customs and Homeland Security divisions, the public can anticipate President-elect Trump to attempt mass deportation efforts in the early days of his presidency. Yet, will he have the resources and the legal standing to accomplish this goal?
In a November Ethnic Media Services briefing, Jeremy Robbins, executive director of a bipartisan group of CEOs and mayors, the New American Economy, said most of those who have been deported recently are already in detention or have already been in contact with the government in some way. This condition simplifies the task of deportation and is much easier than seeking out immigrants in American communities to be deported.
The truth is, the two branches of the Department of Homeland Security that search for unauthorized people do not currently have the capacity to carry out a mass deportation effort, said Robbins.The investigative work alone would be extremely expensive, demanding high numbers of staff and monetary resources.
The act of holding immigrants in custody as the courts decide whether they should remain in the country is challenging in itself, considering our current detention capacity for immigrants is around 50,000. Deporting millions of people would require the construction of new detention facilities to handle a higher volume as well as a new set of judges to help make decisions. This, given the remarkable backlog of over a million cases and a timeline of around five years to decide current asylum cases.
On top of detention and court costs is the price of getting people to their home countries, along with the added challenge of finding countries that will accept them. If done all at once, Trump’s proposal would cost about $315 billion, said Robbins, while a million people a year would amount to about $88 million annually, over a decade costing American taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars. This, despite recent discussions over drastically cutting the cost of government.
The Biden Administration has already deployed existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) resources to the maximum extent, having been quite aggressive considering its limited resources, added Greg Chan, Senior Director of Government Relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Added funding to support this process was proposed by Democrats in a bipartisan bill, which was voted last this May. As NBC reported, the measure would have raised the standards to qualify for asylum and authorized officials to quickly expel those who fail to meet that new standard. It would have also given the president power to shut down the border when migration levels exceed certain levels.
It was only after Republicans negotiated and signed off on the proposal, that they were given instructions from Donald Trump to block the effort, NBC reported, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska being the only Republican Senator to vote in favor of the bill.
According to Julia Gillard, Associate Director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, the highest number of deportations occurred under Obama in 2009, at 238,000. To accomplish the volume Trump seeks would require a huge infusion of resources, of staff, added detention facilities, immigration court proceedings, and more planes and buses to scale up to needed capacity.
Some tools that the incoming administration could use is expedited removal, a tool created in 1996 that allows the government to quickly and summarily deport people arriving without ever presenting their case to an immigration judge. Yet, as Gillard points out, it is difficult to know exactly how that could be carried out and the exact legal ramifications of this action.
Under the first Trump Administration, we saw an increase in bans on certain categories of immigrants, which under the Immigration Nationality Act, enabled the president to suspend entry for categories he defines under his discretion as potential threats. This could cover a wide range of rhetorical messages he’s already been using, such as targeting immigrants as criminals and terrorists. These tactics would likely be challenged in the courts, added Robbins, though the Supreme Court will likely offer sufficient latitude to support Trump’s efforts.
The staffing requirements for a mass deportation effort present additional challenges, added Chen. Just the required time just to hire needed immigration enforcement officers will be challenging, while finding enough border patrol officers and agents who are sufficiently qualified has already been an issue. This is why discussions are pointing to state, local and National Guard resources. Private contractors, like Geo Corporation or Congressional Corporation of America may also be considered, Chen added.
According to Gillard, most deportations tend to happen to people who have previous involvement with local law enforcement, after committing a major crime or being caught driving without a license in a state where licenses aren’t available to them. In such cases, the policies that local jurisdictions have about cooperating with ICE become very important from a legal standpoint in such a comprehensive operation.
Adding Chen, the new administration will need to respect our federal laws and civil rights as they attempt mass deportation. Yet, early discussions among the newly developing administration include mobilizing an untrained National Guard, who are unfamiliar with immigration laws, which could very well result in violations.
As pointed out by Elizabeth Taufa, senior policy attorney and strategist for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the emotional and psychological impacts of the intimidation campaigns and threats is also something that should be carefully considered, Taufa painting a dark picture at the community level.
“It looks like kids that aren’t going to school because their parents are afraid of being deported. It looks like shortages of health care workers because people either move to states that are a little bit safer, or they are removed from the country. And it looks like fewer teachers. It’s the unraveling of the threads of our American communities,” she said.
And it will hit rural communities a lot harder than urban ones, te economic consequences to be severe. Taufa expects various sectors to fold without immigrant labor.
Chen added, “I was just down on the southern border in Arizona In the southwest corner of Yuma County, [where] they are incredibly dependent on migrant labor for agriculture. The businesses there are very concerned about making sure that labor needs are able to be met.”
The administration is counting on instilling fear in these communities. Even those with legal status are already expressing fears of being profiled and rounded up, concerns that are legitimate, he added.
With about 5% of our workforce currently unauthorized, Gillard said the impacts will be focused more in some industries more than others. Yet, Chen projects devastation of businesses and industries in just about every economic sector. And considering the economy was the top issue for voters, Chen suggests the move may not be wise politically.
By conservative estimates, deporting 13 million people who are over 4% of the workforce in critical industries would have between 4.2 and 6.8% negative impact on gross domestic product–in line with the Great Recession, noted Robbins.
Conversely, the last big bill on immigration reform, which in 2013 added pathways to legal status, had a positive impact of $900 billion over a 20-year period, bringing in more taxpayers, more consumers, and growing our economy, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found.
If deportations are to be scaled up to Trump Administration desires, it will need both the House and Senate on its side. As Robbins explained, to fund most government efforts, 60 votes are required in the Senate, with the exception of the reconciliation process, which can occur only once a year.
Currently working on the fiscal budget, monies will likely be locked up at current levels until next September, meaning the biggest opportunity to fund the effort would be through reconciliation, which requires only 50 votes. The one other way is to repurpose money from elsewhere, such as the military budget, which is being discussed, said Robbins. Yet, there will be many other priorities to consider, and it is unclear whether the incoming President’s goals will be achieved.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) law enforcement budget already exceeds every other federal law enforcement agency’s budget combined, so multiplying that several times over to get the required funding will be challenging, added Chen.
Under the current policy, Gillard said, when people arrive at official crossing points, they can make an appointment, and while they may wait several months to be processed into the United States, they are often awarded temporary status, or humanitarian parole while they wait. However, many have a difficult time qualifying unless they meet certain exceptions, said Gillard.
Under the Trump Administration, we can expect these exceptions to be removed, and CBP1 ports of entry to be ended, she added, making it very difficult to access asylum proceedings.
So whereas many people have been presenting themselves to border authorities and asking for protection, we will likely see many paying smugglers to cross the border in the future, though such attempts may be fewer surrounding the rhetoric of a new Trump presidency, Gillard said.
