According to Pro Publica,
The Trump administration says it, too, is focused on deporting criminals, but it has redefined crimes to include any activity that might bring a conviction, including entering the U.S. without permission. Effectively, that makes virtually everyone in the U.S. without a proper visa subject to roundup at their workplace or home. The only clear exception, according to the enforcement plan, is for immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children, known as Dreamers.
“Anyone who complained about Obama as the deporter-in-chief,” said David Martin, formerly DHS’s principal deputy general counsel, “is unfortunately going to get a taste of what it’s like when someone is really gung-ho.”
Greg Chen, the policy director at AILA, said the Trump plan would “effectively unleash a massive deportation force with extremely broad authority to use detention as the default mechanism for anyone suspected of violating immigration law.”
The question looming over the proposals is how many of them, with all their legal and logistical obstacles, will the president actually be able to carry out.
Best case scenario would have been President Trump simply pursuing the deportation-heavy policies of his predecessor. However, he really does seem inclined to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants in the US much closer to zero than it currently is, even if that means upending domestic and international law, positive relations with our neighbors, US security, and the US economy.
A number of obstacles stand in President Trump’s way of realizing his dream. Perhaps this time reality will get in the way.
