Donald Trump is ramping up calls to carry out mass deportations of immigrants if he wins a return to the White House, offering new details about his plans in the final weeks of his campaign.
Trump aims to start by targeting gang and cartel members, particularly those belonging to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based group the US government has designated as a transnational criminal organization. More broadly, the former president’s campaign pledges to launch “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
“We will send elite squads of ICE, Border Patrol, and federal law enforcement to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal alien gang member until there is not a single one left,” Trump said at a rally earlier this month, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Some legal scholars, immigrants’ rights advocates, and other critics question the scope of Trump’s vision, arguing that mass deportations would be inhumane, costly, and potentially illegal.
Border hawks say the sweeping removals are overdue and necessary to deter illegal crossings into the US, but even some hard-line Republicans acknowledge the need for a phased approach.
The results of November’s congressional elections could also limit Trump’s ability to carry through any deportation plan through oversight efforts, funding restrictions, or blockading leadership confirmations.
What does Trump want to do?
Trump has pledged to target gang members for deportation by dusting off part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 known as the Alien Enemies Act.
The law, which allows the US government to detain and remove noncitizens of hostile nations during wartime, was infamously used to justify the confinement of Japanese Americans and others during World War II. Although the law cannot be used to target US citizens, during World War II, tens of thousands of immigrants of Japanese, Italian and German descent were detained under it.
Trump wants to use the power to target members of Tren de Aragua, a gang that the Treasury Department has subjected to sanctions and called an “escalating threat” throughout the Western Hemisphere. Trump dubbed the roundup plan “Operation Aurora” during a rally in Aurora, Colo., earlier this month, referencing an alleged swell of gang violence there that local officials dispute.
Trump Brands Deportation Push ‘Operation Aurora’ at Rally
Trump deflected when asked about broader deportation plans — and how removing undocumented farmworkers would affect the US — during a town hall aired on Univision on Wednesday. Trump said only that he favors legal migration and falsely suggested workers didn’t enter the US illegally while he was president.
What’s Trump’s track record on deportations?
Trump’s push to systematically deport millions of immigrants in the country without authorization goes back years and was a major feature of his successful bid for president in the 2016 election.
When he took office in 2017, he announced plans to eject immediately as many as 3 million immigrants who he said had criminal records, but actual deportations were much lower during his term. The highest number of removals under his watch occurred in fiscal 2019, with more than 347,000 noncitizens removed, Department of Homeland Security statistics show.
By comparison, former President Barack Obama, denounced as “deporter in chief” by some immigration advocates, oversaw the removal of more than 430,000 noncitizens in 2013.
Immigrant advocacy groups and think tanks point out that Trump was effective in curbing legal immigration—such as reducing certain worker visas— especially as his attempts to target undocumented migrants often ran into lengthy legal challenges.
What are the objections?
Immigrants’ rights advocates argue that Trump’s mass deportation plans, which they contend will inevitably go beyond the gang members Trump says he wants to target, threaten to break up families and stoke unfounded fears about immigrants and communities of color in general.
“He just has to wink at this idea, and his followers follow,” María Teresa Kumar, cofounder and president of Voto Latino, said in a call with reporters Thursday.
Many economists and researchers have warned about the economic hit the US would take if Trump deported undocumented immigrants who make up large portions of key industries, including agriculture and manufacturing. One recent analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics says deporting 7.5 million workers would eventually drive down US gross domestic product by 6.2% and reduce the number of hours worked by 3.6%; deporting 1.3 million workers would also result in drops to both metrics, the study says.
The legal underpinnings of the targeted approach have also attracted scrutiny. Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel for the progressive Brennan Center for Justice, argues that the Alien Enemies Act has overly broad language that a president can abuse by invoking the authority during peacetime to bypass due process requirements in criminal and immigration law.
“The fact that he’s not willing to share those mechanics and specifics is something that we should be very concerned about,” Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS Action Fund, said of Trump’s deportation plans during the same call with reporters Thursday.
What is Congress doing?
Democrats have introduced legislation (
Instead, immigrants’ rights advocates and progressives on the Hill aim to ramp up oversight if Trump wins the White House, particularly if Democrats win back control of the House. A Democratic Senate could also pose obstacles to filling leadership positions at DHS to oversee any operations, although Trump relied heavily on acting officials to carry out his plans in his first term.
Republicans, meanwhile, are generally enthusiastic about Trump’s plans or offering similar blueprints, though some have acknowledged logistical limitations to any ambition to swiftly remove the estimated 11 million people in the country without authorization. Rep.
Once the “hard criminals” are deported, “we’re going to move deeper into the spectrum of people that are here illegally,” Higgins said in an interview.
A Biden administration policy to prioritize the detention and deportation of migrants deemed dangerous was delayed for years by a lawsuit from Republican states.
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