President-elect Donald Trump intends to launch a “light speed” mass deportation campaign as soon as he “puts his hand on that Bible and takes the oath of office,” top aide Stephen Miller has boasted. In response, a highly detailed new Washington Post analysis asks two questions. “What would a mass deportation campaign really look like? Does Trump have the means and the personnel to pull it off?”
A prime target for deportations are the 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s caseload. While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long prioritized immigrants with criminal records, there are other subgroups that could be at a higher risk of deportation. They include millions of newcomers who arrived during the record border influx under President Joe Biden, as well as those who have exhausted their legal appeals but haven’t left the United States, the Post reports, in an interactive story using data from ICE, congressional reports, the Migration Policy Institute and the Department of Homeland Security. Reporters also analyzed data on immigration court cases released regularly by the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
The Washington Post story breaks down the number of people in each immigration subset – those awaiting asylum hearings and those who have a deferred status, for instance -- and whether they’re able to return to their home country.
The Post’s team looks in detail at the tools needed to deport, such as detention beds, flights, and the willingness of nation’s to take back their deportees.
Tom Homan, Trump’s proposed “immigration czar,” has said he would like at least 100,000 beds for would-be deportees, perhaps in military bases or temporary tent facilities. “Those sites are unlikely to meet ICE safety and detention standards,” the Washington Post team concludes.
Also, ICE has about a dozen aircraft available for flights that can transport about 135 deportees each, the Post reports. “Officials say there aren’t a lot of additional unused planes available for hire, and the Pentagon has been reluctant to allow military aircraft to be used for deportations. Using other noncivilian aircraft such as cargo planes would probably violate Federal Aviation Administration rules.”
Perhaps the biggest limiting factor, the Post analysis finds, is the ability of even willing (or non-recalcitrant) nations to take back deportees. “Even countries that cooperate with ICE such as Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala don’t have the capacity to take back significantly more people than they are already accepting. Their airports must issue permits for additional flights. Their intake facilities, or reception centers — some built with U.S. funding — have limited processing capacity. While they may be able to accept an increase in deportees, they would not be able to quickly double or triple capacity.”
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