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-Land of the Free
Deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants a year is much easier than you think
2024-12-16
[KansasCityStar] In a Time magazine interview published this week, Donald Trump
...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party...
 continues to stand by his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants colonists in the United States to their home countries beginning the day he takes office. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance says that they will start at a minimum target of 1 million immigrants colonists a year.

Critics say the effort will cost $1 trillion and a CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
 analysis of research on the subject says even deporting 1 million a year is "unrealistic." That’s bunk.

The deportation deniers offer four reasons we can’t do it: It will cost too much; we don’t know who to deport and we’ll have to grossly violate civil liberties to get it done. Moreover, they argue, foreign countries won’t take them back. None of those are true or they don’t have to be.

I am not making a judgment on whether Trump should make a record-setting mass deportation effort. I am saying that too many analysts have confused what they want to be true with what actually is true.

MYTH 1: IT COSTS TOO MUCH
To begin with, in 2009 and 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 250,000 people a year from the interior of the U.S. each year. Those are the hardest cases, not like people we turn away just over the border or those we apprehend, process and then return home, which are sometimes reported as deportations.

The budget for these 500,000 deportations was $7.5 billion over two years or $3.74 billion annually in 2024 dollars, in what is called ICE’s Detention and Removal Budget. It was bipartisan, happening under the leadership of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
That’s just how white folks will do you....
. In the years since then, that budget has gone up by 20% to $4.5 billion but we’re deporting a fraction of the number of immigrants colonists we did before.

All we have to do is get back to the same efficiency we had in 2009 and 2010 to deport 300,000 (20% more than 250,000). Say the next 300,000 cost twice as much to deport — $9 billion and the next 300,000 cost twice as much again, or $18 billion. That’s 900,000 deportations a year for $31.5 billion annually. That doesn’t seem too crazy. And over a decade, that’s a third the cost critics complain of.

Moreover, even the lowball estimates of researchers who say Trump’s goals are impossible accept that such a national effort would cause more than a 100,000 immigrants colonists a year to leave on their own to avoid getting entangled with ICE. That’s your million a year.

MYTH 2: WE DON’T KNOW WHO TO DEPORT
We know enough right now to handle the first five or six years. The federal government knows of 1 to 2 million undocumented immigrants colonists in the country who are wanted or convicted criminals, depending on your definition. There are already 1.5 million undocumented immigrants colonists who are not criminals, but who have been through the immigration court system and been denied legal status. At the same time, there are nearly 4 million cases lumbering their way through our immigration court system — what’s often called the "backlog."

We don’t have to identify a single new individual as an undocumented immigrant for six years of deporting 1 million a year. That’s half the undocumented migrants colonists in the country.

MYTH 3: WE’LL VIOLATE CIVIL RIGHTS
Critics of the Trump plan argue that there simply aren’t enough resources to give everyone who gets caught up in the ICE net due process. Not enough lawyers, judges and ICE agents.

To begin with, there’s no serious argument that the Bush and B.O. regimes were violating civil rights willy-nilly when they deported 250,000 undocumented immigrants colonists a year 15 years ago. Trump’s plan can do the same due diligence as it ramps up to a million a year by spending up to four times as much per immigrant — that’s a lot of extra resources. Trump told Time that he wants to follow the law to get this done. It wasn’t that long ago that ICE quadrupled removals without systematically violating civil rights. The Biden administration did it between 2020 and 2024.

For the first six years, the people who would be targeted for deportation have already gotten their due process or are in the process of getting it already from the system in place under President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing...
MYTH 4: COUNTRIES WON’T TAKE BACK CITIZENS
According to Pew researchers, two-thirds of what they believe are 12 million undocumented immigrants colonists in the United States come from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. All those countries get billions a year in remittances from immigrants colonists who work in the U.S. and send home part of their earnings.

In many cases, a country’s economy is dependent on this $200 billion in leverage. Trump can deliver a simple message: If you don’t take back your undocumented immigrants colonists, our financial system will cut off the remittances. This tool would work just as well with much of Asia, the Middle East and Africa where, among others, Pakistain, Vietnam and Nigeria each get billions of dollars.

The Trump administration has powerful winds at its back that might allow it to launch roundups and deportations at an even faster pace. Computer technology and surveillance have both advanced markedly since 2009. There are more police than there were 15 years ago and crime is much lower — allowing more boots on the ground to enforce immigration laws if local police cooperate as they do in much of the country, and which Trump says he will encourage. The economy is much more digitized, making it harder to live a life where your identity is off the grid.

And there are powerful tools to make the United States much less welcoming to undocumented immigrants colonists that the U.S. has never wielded. For instance, undocumented migrants colonists paid federal, state and local governments nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2024, billions of which is returned to them in refunds fueled by tax breaks targeted at low-income earners. The U.S. could require proof of legal presence to pay refunds and hold the money until the immigrants colonists agree to return to their home countries. Companies could be required to provide proof of legal presence for each employee whose salary they claim as an expense on their taxes. Such a move would hit farmers and hotels where undocumented workers frequently work, as each is dependent on undocumented migrants colonists for workers, and the salaries of which are deducted on their taxes.

Donald Trump’s plans for dealing with undocumented immigration are big, and they could be undone by the competence problems that were rife in his last administration. But they are not as unrealistic as his critics proclaim.
Posted by:trailing wife

#1  Eisenhowers Operation W#tback sweeps illegals left country on their own for the most part.
Posted by: crazyhorse   2024-12-16 16:59  

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