Posted within the hour, and intended for Monday’s paper, A President Trump could deport freely examines all the things that would be within Donald Trump’s power as President acting on his own to affect immigration and immigrants.
This is another of a promised series of editorials. The first of course was to explain why Trump was unfit to be President. The paper promised a separate series of editorials explaining in more detail topic by topic.
The editorial begins with this paragraph
DONALD TRUMP has telegraphed his intentions, if not always consistently, to radically shift immigration policy and, in so doing, subvert America’s vitality and international standing as a beacon of diversity and tolerance. While he cannot unilaterally undertake every change he proposes, there is plenty he can do, on his own, to overhaul America’s approach to immigrants. His program would undercut the nation’s economic prospects, its values and the vibrancy of its neighborhoods and communities.
It then proceeds to go through many of the actions he could — and I would argue would be expected to — take.
For example, the editorial notes that
Federal law gives presidents the power to bar any “class of aliens” they deem “detrimental to the interests of the United States,”
which would allow him to bar people from a specific country, for example, any country with a majority Muslim population. This of course would undercut our ability to gain cooperation from such nations in our joint efforts against terrorism.
Mr. Trump could revoke work permits and the protection from deportation granted by Mr. Obama
to the Dreamers. After all, Obama established that by Executive Order, and a succeeding president can revoke such Executive Orders.
Mr. Trump could also unilaterally broaden the categories of undocumented immigrants targeted for accelerated deportation
which would potentially affect up to 5 million people, including visa overstayers. It might be expensive “to find, detain, process and remove” so many, but given Trump’s rhetoric on this he is far more likely to devote resources to this as a means of solidifying his base than to other more important needs for such resources.
And then there is the question of deporting ALL undocumented aliens. Referring to a study by a Conservative group, the editorial reports what would be required:
- 90,000 federal deportation agents when we currently have less than 5,000
- ten times the current number of 34,000 deportation beds in detention centers
- 30,000 additional federal lawyers to handle the surge of cases in immigration courts.
The final paragraph addresses the costs of such an approach, even beyond the $400-600 billion in outlays (including the wall) and the loss of up to ten million workers. It then concludes with these words:
The most lasting and damaging cost would be to America’s prestige globally and to its founding principles. A nation that expels millions of long-standing residents with deep roots in their communities is not a leader; it is a fearful, mean and meek place, heartless and spiritually crabbed. This is not the America envisioned by the Founding Fathers; it is certainly not a home of the brave.