According to four persons involved with the negotiations, Donald Trump’s allies and those in the commercial sector have been covertly planning large-scale detention and deportation of migrants residing in the United States.
And with the former president now the president-elect, those preparations are expected to accelerate.
Immigration was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and while he repeatedly touted promises of mass deportation on the campaign trail, focusing more on interior enforcement than his 2016 fixation on the border wall, members of his orbit and some in the private sector discussed what that plan would look like, according to sources.
Senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told AWN that Trump’s first goal will be to reestablish his past administration’s border measures and reverse President Joe Biden’s.
According to a person familiar with Trump’s preliminary ideas, early discussions within his team have centered on removing unauthorized immigrants who have committed crimes. A crucial topic under consideration is how, when, and when to deport immigrants brought to the United States as children, also known as Dreamers.
Targeting Dreamers would be a departure from their long-standing bipartisan support. Some are temporarily shielded under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which permits them to live and work in the United States.
Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, could become one of the administration’s immigration leaders, according to sources.
“It won’t be a major sweep of neighborhoods. It will not be establishing detention camps. I have read it all. In an interview with CBS News last month, Homan said, “It’s ridiculous.”
“There will be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest and where we’re most likely to find them based on a variety of investigative procedures,” he added.
Brian Hughes, a Trump senior adviser, stated that when the president-elect returns to the White House, one of his top objectives will be border security.
“President Trump won a landslide victory Tuesday because Americans embrace his common sense policy to secure our border and implement mass deportation for illegal migrants,” Hughes tweeted.
Logistics challenges
According to one of the sources, even before Tuesday night, several in the private sector who help provide services for detention facilities were in continuous negotiations about a potential second Trump term and expect preparations to resume.
One of the most important components of any strategy to deport immigrants is jail capacity, which Democratic and Republican administrations have struggled with due to limited finances.
The federal government contracts with the private sector to develop, run, and administer detention facilities, as well as with county jails.
“There are only a few beds in federally owned facilities. “The rest are split between private detention facilities and county jails,” said John Sandweg, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Obama. “There’s an ICE presence, but by and large the people operating the detention centers are employees of the contractors.”
The new Trump administration can rely on a number of contractors, including some who already have agreements with the federal government, which could make the process quicker.
The most difficult component, according to current and former ICE personnel, is finding the money.
In 2016, the average cost of apprehending, detaining, processing, and removing one undocumented immigrant from the United States was $10,900, according to ICE data. That year, ICE also reported that the average cost of transporting a deportee to their home country was $1,978. Since then, the costs have only increased.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations has historically been underfunded, and has had to repurpose funding to expand jail space, particularly during border surges. However, the amount of money that can be reprogrammed is limited, according to officials.
“They would need to be aggressive to make sure they don’t have to reprogram,” one former senior ICE official said, referring to the upcoming budget cycle. “If they want to accomplish the goals they’ve been talking about, they’d need orders of magnitude change.”
This also means increasing people, which has historically been a challenge for the organization.
“As for incarceration, they can contact the existing contractors. “They can move relatively quickly,” said the former top ICE official, adding that deportation can be difficult in some nations.
“The criteria for travel documents vary from country to country. Removals in Mexico and Central America can be completed promptly after receiving an order of removal. “In most other countries, it takes much longer,” they noted.
ICE also has constraints when it comes to holding immigrant families, and it is not in charge of holding unaccompanied migrant children; that is the responsibility of the Health and Human Services Department.
A mixed outlook at DHS
At the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of immigration enforcement, officials are bracing for a major shift in immigration policy under the incoming Trump administration, triggering some interagency contacts Wednesday as people prepare for the coming weeks.
One Homeland Security official described the sentiment internally as “mixed bag.” One of the most pressing worries for those in the department on Wednesday was what would happen to Biden administration policies, such as parole programs for specific nationalities that allowed people to temporarily work and live in the United States.
“She’ll shock the political establishment,” claimed another Homeland Security official.
In his first days in office, Biden reversed many of the Trump administration’s contentious immigration initiatives. Those policies may be returning.
For some at DHS, this is welcome news. Over the previous three years, the Biden administration has faced repeated border crises, drawing harsh criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
Biden administration officials finally adopted a far stricter posture on the US-Mexico border, resulting in a substantial decline in migrant crossings in recent months.
Nonetheless, some in the department’s immigration enforcement bureaus celebrated Trump’s victory.
“There is a lot of optimism and hope,” another Homeland Security source stated.