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Opinion | Don’t Do Trump’s Work for Him on Mass Deportations
Don’t Do Trump’s Work for Him on Mass Deportations
“… Understand, first of all, that no change is needed to U.S. law to start the deportation process for every unauthorized immigrant in the United States. Being in the country without proper immigration status is a civil violation, and deportation is considered the civil penalty for it.
Just as he did during his first term, Mr. Trump will almost certainly issue guidance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement that every unauthorized immigrant is fair game for arrest, and that deportable immigrants who happen to get caught up by ICE, even if agents aren’t specifically looking for that person, could also be detained.
ICE agents already have authority to conduct enforcement in residential and commercial areas; the reason they usually haven’t (even under Mr. Trump) is because those raids take a lot of planning for the
frequently low numbers of people they actually nab. It requires far less effort to simply pick up immigrants from local jails, which is why ICE tends to prefer working with local law enforcement. Since some local police are more willing to cooperate than others, this makes deportation risk a matter of geography.
But the arrest of immigrants isn’t the same as their removal.
For most immigrants — those who haven’t been apprehended shortly after their arrival — deportation isn’t a quick process. It generally entails the right to a hearing before an immigration judge, to prove that the immigrants lack legal status and that they can’t apply for relief (such as asylum). In the meantime, they’re either released on supervision or held in immigration detention.
… In fiscal year 2024, Congress gave ICE the money for
41,500 detention beds. This is insufficient for anything that would constitute mass deportation. Extra holding facilities can be spun up as needed, but not immediately — and at higher cost (because of, say, noncompetitive contractor bids) than building a detention facility the usual way.
Immigration courts are famously backlogged, not least because that’s where asylum-seekers end up to present their cases. …
As of the end of September,
3.7 million people were waiting for their claims to be resolved. This includes an overwhelming majority of the recent border crossers whose arrival under President Biden so incensed Mr. Trump and his allies. They can try to rush their court cases through faster (though they’ll need people, meaning money, to do it), but there’s not much juice to squeeze in rounding up people who are already, legally speaking, in deportation proceedings. …”