TITLE: Trump allies, private sector quietly prepare for mass detention of immigrants
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/07/politics/trump-immigrant-detention-plans/
EXCERPTS: Even before Tuesday night, some in the private sector who help provide services for detention spaces had already been in ongoing discussions about a potential second Trump term and are expecting planning to pick up, according to one of the sources.
One of the key elements of any plan to deport immigrants is detention space, which Democratic and Republican administrations have grappled with because of limited resources.
The federal government contracts with the private sector to build, operate and manage detention facilities, and works with county jails.
“There’s a small number of beds that are federally owned facilities. The rest of them are split between private detention facilities and county jails,” said John Sandweg, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Obama administration. “There’s an ICE presence, but by and large the people operating the detention centers are employees of the contractors.”
There are a number of contractors the incoming Trump administration can lean on, including those who already have existing agreements with the federal government, making it a potentially easier process.
The hard part, current and former ICE officials said, is finding the money.
The average cost of apprehending, detaining, processing and removing one undocumented immigrant from the United States in 2016 was $10,900, according to figures released by ICE at the time. That year, ICE also said the average cost of transporting one deportee to their home country was $1,978. Since then, the costs have only grown.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations has generally been underfunded and has previously had to reprogram funds to expand detention space, especially during border surges. But there are limits to how much money can be reprogrammed, officials said.
ICE also has limitations in holding immigrant families – and is not responsible for holding unaccompanied migrant children; that responsibility lies within the Health and Human Services Department.
At the Department of Homeland Security, which is charged with immigration enforcement, officials are bracing for a seismic shift in immigration policy under the incoming Trump administration, prompting some interagency calls Wednesday as people prepare for the weeks ahead.
TITLE: Inside Trump's plan for mass deportations - and who wants to stop him
www.reuters.com/world/us/inside-trumps-plan-mass-deportations-who-wants-stop-him-2024-11-06/
EXCERPTS: Trump backers - including some who could enter his second administration - anticipate the Republican president-elect will call on everyone from the U.S. military to diplomats overseas to turn his campaign promise of mass deportations into a reality. The effort would include cooperation with Republican-led states and use federal funding as leverage against resistant jurisdictions.
Trump recaptured the White House vowing a vast immigration crackdown. The centerpiece of his reelection bid was a promise to deport record numbers of immigrants, an operation Trump’s running mate JD Vance estimated could remove 1 million people per year.
Immigrant advocates warn that Trump’s deportation effort would be costly, divisive and inhumane, leading to family separations and devastating communities. Edison Research exit polls showed 39% of voters said most immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported while 56% said they should be allowed to apply for legal status.
Trump struggled to ramp up deportations during his 2017-2021 presidency. When counting both immigration removals and faster “returns” to Mexico by U.S. border officials, Biden deported more immigrants in fiscal year 2023 than any Trump year, according to government data.
But a deportation operation targeting millions would require many more officers, detention beds and immigration court judges. American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group, estimated the cost of deporting 13 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally as $968 billion over a little more than a decade.
Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expected to join the new administration, said in a late October interview that the scale of the deportations would hinge on potential officers and detention space.
“It all depends on what the budget is,” he said.
A key factor will be whether other countries will accept their citizens, an issue Trump faced with limited success during his first term. The Trump administration also struggled at times to convince other nations in the region - including Mexico - to take steps to stop migrants from moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ken Cuccinelli, former acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Trump, said the State Department was a “roadblock” for immigration enforcement and that aggressive appointees will be key.
Christopher Landau, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2019-2021, recently said he was frustrated with the reluctance of some U.S. diplomats to tackle immigration enforcement.
"Nobody really thought that was their problem,” Landau said in an October panel discussion by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restricting immigration.
About half of ICE’s 21,000 employees are part of its Homeland Security Investigations unit, which focuses on transnational crime such as drug smuggling and child exploitation rather than immigration enforcement. Several Trump allies said the unit would need to spend more time on immigration.
HSI has distanced itself from ICE’s immigration work in recent years, saying fear of deportation made it harder for its investigators to build trust in immigrant communities.
Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's first-term immigration agenda, said in 2023 that National Guard troops from cooperative states could potentially be deployed to resistant states to assist with deportations, which would likely trigger legal battles.
Trump plans to use a 1798 wartime statute known as the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged gang members, an action that would almost certainly be challenged in court.
The law has been used three times, according to the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice: the War of 1812, World War One, and World War Two, when it was employed to justify internment camps for people of Japanese, German and Italian descent.
"Many fear that a second Trump administration would seek to use this law to justify indefinite detention and remove people from the country swiftly and without judicial review," Naureen Shah, the ACLU's deputy director of government affairs, wrote in late October.
George Fishman, a former DHS official under Trump, said the Trump administration would need to prove the immigrants were sent by a foreign government.
“I worry a little about overpromising,” Fishman said.
TITLE: Trump Advisor’s “Turbocharged” Denaturalization Project Sparks Fear Among Immigrant Communities After Election Win
https://balleralert.com/profiles/blogs/trump-advisors-turbocharged-denaturalization-project-sparks-fear-among-immigrant/
EXCERPTS: A tweet from Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller has sparked intense debate and concern among immigrant communities after Trump’s recent victory. Miller’s tweet, which has gone viral, reads, “Yes. We started a new denaturalization project under Trump. In 2025, expect it to be turbocharged,” hinting at an aggressive expansion of efforts to revoke citizenship for naturalized Americans. Miller’s promise of a “turbocharged” denaturalization effort under a potential Trump-Vance administration has left immigrant advocates sounding alarms over the potential consequences for millions of U.S. citizens.
The denaturalization initiative, which began under Trump’s first administration, involved investigations into naturalized citizens, often based on minor discrepancies in immigration paperwork or other technicalities. Critics argue that these investigations are a way to intimidate immigrant communities, as they are seen as attempts to revoke citizenship for reasons unrelated to criminal or national security concerns. Advocates argue that these tactics are rooted in a vision of exclusion rather than the principles of justice and equality.
Miller’s statement comes on the heels of discussions around Trump’s new Project 2025, an agenda that includes aggressive immigration policies aimed at curbing both legal and undocumented immigration. Advocates fear that with Trump back in office, millions of immigrants who have legally earned their place in the U.S. could see their rights come under threat, creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among naturalized citizens.
SEE ALSO:
The Haitians of Springfield, a Trump campaign target, brace for his presidency
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/11/07/springfield-ohio-haitian-migrants-trump-win/
Trump’s deportation threats bring “so much uncertainty” to immigrant-friendly Colorado, advocates say
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/11/07/colorado-immigrants-deportations-trump-operation-aurora/
Venezuelan immigrant living in Fort Worth worries about mass deportations following Trump reelection
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/venezuelan-immigrant-living-in-fort-worth-worries-about-mass-deportations-following-trump-reelection/
They could be deported, but these Latino immigrants in Georgia still relish Trump’s win
https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-news/they-could-be-deported-but-these-latino-immigrants-in-georgia-still-relish-trumps-win/WG2R3GU3INBVHAJGHXWNJYCMEA/