Donald Trump and his political allies have made large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants the backbone of the next administration's immigration strategies. Key figures such as Stephen Miller, known for his hardline stance on immigration, and Tom Homan, Trump's new "border czar", have been positioned to play prominent roles in executing these efforts.
Experts have been quick to point out the logistical and practical limitations constrain the scope of mass deportations. Deporting the entire undocumented population, estimated at over 11 million people, would require an enormous financial investment—potentially hundreds of billions of dollars—and substantial infrastructure expansions.
Nevertheless, the plan seems poised to happen as Trump himself recently said mass deportations were "not a question of a price tag." And a new Op-ed by the New York Times' Dara Lind sheds light on how exactly it could happen, focusing especially on who figures to be affected by the policy in its first instances.
The immediate focus of any deportation efforts, according to Lind, will likely target individuals with existing removal orders who regularly check in with ICE. Such individuals are logistically easier to deport without lengthy legal proceedings. But, there's a catch: home countries need to cooperate in accepting deportees. Nevertheless, as Lind points out, "Mr. Trump has no problem using any diplomatic cudgel available to get other countries to cooperate on immigration enforcement.
Other potential first targets include individuals with lapsed legal protections or temporary statuses, though these cases often involve legal complexities that require adjudication. Immigration courts, already overwhelmed with a backlog of 3.7 million cases, face significant delays, limiting how quickly such deportations can proceed.
"Who gets targeted first" List concludes, "will depend in part on which of these problems the administration tackles first".
"If Trump officials get a diplomatic breakthrough with a country previously deemed recalcitrant, expect large numbers of people to get arrested at their ICE check-ins and deported under existing removal orders. If they don't, expect deportations to be limited to countries that are generally already willing to take U.S. removal flights (like Mexico, Guatemala, Peru). People with prior contact with the criminal justice system are politically appealing targets, but if they haven't already been deported, it may be because their cases are complicated and will need to be worked out in court. People who have a form of legal status that has lapsed, or legal protections that the Trump administration might try to strip, such as Temporary Protected Status, may be easy to find but won't be quick to remove"
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