"Misses the point of reality" Trump's deportation plans are probably not feasible
Trump has announced plans to deport large numbers of people without a residence permit. Officials in charge believe the plans are almost impossible to implement.
25.12.2024, 17:50
dpa
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- Donald Trump, who will return to the White House in January, has announced a tough course in the fight against illegal immigration.
- During the election campaign, he repeatedly spoke of mass deportations.
- However, many experts are wondering how the Republican intends to implement his plans.
Early morning in New York. It is still dark. Employees of a migration authority have been sitting in their vehicle outside a two-storey building for two hours. Nearby, a suburban train thunders over the tracks. Then a voice crackles from the radio. It must be the target, says a colleague. "Hooded sweatshirt. Backpack. Runs fast." Shortly afterwards, the men have handcuffed a 23-year-old Ecuadorian.
The idea that security forces can simply come into a neighborhood to arrest rows of people without a residence permit and send them back to their home countries misses the reality, says Kenneth Genalo, an enforcement officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York. In most cases, his people are specifically looking for individual migrants who have been convicted of a crime. And they already have more than enough to do with that.
Donald Trump, who will return to the White House in January, has announced a tough course in the fight against illegal immigration. During the election campaign, he repeatedly spoke of mass deportations. However, many experts are wondering how the Republican intends to implement his plans. The example of the arrest of the 23-year-old Ecuadorian in New York clearly shows that the available resources would not even begin to suffice.
President Joe Biden's administration had focused deportations on people who were considered a threat to public safety and on migrants who had just crossed the border. Tom Homan, whom Trump has introduced as the future "border czar", has also stated that he wants to target those who could pose a threat first. But he doesn't want to leave it at that. "If you're in the country illegally, you have a problem," he recently told Dr. Phil's Merit TV.
Deportation orders against 1.4 million people
There are currently deportation orders against around 1.4 million people in the USA. Around 660,000 are under observation by the authorities because they have been convicted of criminal offenses or because charges have been brought against them. However, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has only 6,000 employees who are responsible for monitoring foreign nationals in the country - and finding and deporting them if necessary.
The most recent operation in New York, during which the AP news agency was allowed to accompany the officers, illustrates just how time-consuming this can be. Around a dozen men had gathered in a parking lot in the Bronx before five o'clock in the morning, checked equipment and donned protective gear. As a rule, his men do not have authorization to enter an apartment and therefore have to wait until their targets come outside, says Genalo.
The officers had previously found out that the 23-year-old Ecuadorian man, who confessed to raping a 14-year-old girl, often left the apartment between 7.00 am and 7.30 am. From their vehicles, they observed lights being turned on in the house and other people coming out of the door at first. When they had arrested the Ecuadorian, they put him in the back seat of one of the vehicles and quickly left the neighborhood.
The Ecuadorian's 22-year-old wife only found out about what had happened when her husband later called her from custody. In an interview with the AP, she said that she had already met her husband in Ecuador. They have a three-year-old daughter together and she is now pregnant with their second child. Her husband works in the construction industry and she works as a manual carer. She had known that her husband could be deported. Nevertheless, she was shocked.
According to its own figures, the US authority ICE has recently deported more than 270,000 people in twelve months - the highest number in ten years. Some cities and states are cooperating with the national authority and are transferring people in custody who are not US citizens. However, many democratic cities and states refuse to cooperate in this way.
People should be prosecuted
In New York, for example, ICE had its own office in the prison for a long time until 2014, when then mayor Bill de Blasio had cooperation restricted. His successor Eric Adams has shown himself to be open to reversing some of the new regulations at the time. The mayor recently met with Homan. He told journalists afterwards that he and Homan had agreed to prosecute people who commit violent crimes.
Many advocates of a moderate immigration policy are critical of ICE's approach and are very concerned about Trump's second inauguration in January. During Trump's first term in office, there were often "collateral arrests", i.e. cases in which other migrants were taken along with the actual targets, says Jehan Laner from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center organization.
Genalo says he cannot comment on the future government's political plans. However, he emphasizes that he has a list of around 58,000 people who have already been convicted of a crime or against whom proceedings are ongoing. He is therefore fairly certain that he and his staff will be "quite busy for a while" dealing with those migrants who have a criminal background.
