To the detriment of the United States, Trump’s “mass deportation” plan is beginning to take shape.
According to Trump’s deputy chief of staff choice Stephen Miller, the president-elect is planning to write an executive order to “seal the border” on day one of his term in office. In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, immigration proved to be a mainstay issue of Trump’s political campaign. Trump used warlike rheotric to describe the situation at the Untied States’ southern border, rhetoric that turned increasingly xenophobic and inflammatory as his campaign progressed. Trump used dehumanizing language to describe migrants, referring to them as animals and echoing white supremacist language to suggest that they are “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
Trump’s “war” on immigrants is prompting him to turn to military measures, and he has recently cited his intention to us the United States military as the chief enforcers of his “mass deportation” plan. Trump intends to justify the decision by pointing to an 18th century law known as the Alien Enemies Act, which stipulates that a president may use the military to forcibly remove foreign nationals from the U.S. soil, provided that the United States is in a state of declared war with their home nation. The invocation of this act could make it easier for Trump and his cadre to round up and deport immigrants without being blocked by immigration courts. Should Trump and his allies fail to successfully invoke the act, their deportation plans could be stymied by those courts for decades.
These are far from the only measures that Trump is taking to bar migrants from the United States. During a recent “Meet The Press” interview, trump cited his intention to revoke U.S. laws surrounding birthright citizenship, which grants full citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ status. Trump then repeated the lie that the United States is the only country on the planet that practices birthright citizenship. It isn’t. Over 30 nations do so, including Canada and much of South America.
Trump isn’t alone is his draconian anti-immigrant stance. The president elect recently tapped Tom Homan to serve as his “border czar” in order to help him bring his mans deportation scheme to fruition. Homan is proponent of hardline immigration policies, and has warned Democratic politicians resistant to the deportation plans to “get the hell out of the way.” Homan has also suggested that he will not stop the practice of family separation at the border. “When you have a child, that’s on you,” he said of migrants who bring their children to the border, “if you put yourself in that position, it may happen.”
Trump’s mass deportation plan comes at a devastating cost. Experts believe that the plan itself will be a fiscal and logistical nightmare, with a price tag that could cause a severe spike in inflation for years to come. Trump’s plan will also likely gut American industries, such as agriculture and construction, that depend upon the labor of the undocumented. The human cost of the plan will be staggering, and would result in widespread poverty across the nation, according to Center for Migration Studies. Trump’s day one plan in office will bring widespread devastation, and sadly, it will only be the beginning.
Published: Dec 12, 2024 03:21 pm