Washington.- When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he pledged to build a wall to stop criminals from entering the country.
This campaign season, his immigration agenda has a new focus: a mass deportation program unlike any the country has ever seen.
The party’s platform, which was ratified during the Republican convention in Milwaukee, includes promises of the “largest deportation effort in the history of the United States.” Immigration was the topic of Tuesday’s meeting.
What would it take to deport millions of people? Would that be possible?
In 2022, there were 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, according to the most recent government estimates, more than eight in 10 have been in the country for more than a decade.
Trump said in last month’s debate that there were 18 million, which is unsupported.
Who could be targeted for deportation and what fan would be easy to remove?
Trump and the Republican platform have made extensive statements but have not offered details about the operation.
The party has said it would give priority to the “most dangerous criminals.”
The consensus among immigration experts and former Homeland Security officials is that the logistics, legal and bureaucratic issues and cost of barriers could make it virtually impossible to carry out the mass deportation Trump would attempt within four years of his presidential term.
“It would be enormously complicated and expensive to decide to deport people who have been here for years. That would cost trillions of dollars and would probably take 20 years to do, and it would cause the economy to contract,” said Laura Collins, an immigration expert at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.
What other obstacles could there be?
Undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for years have legal protection and the right to due process.
Those who have entered the country illegally in recent years have been processed at the border and released with orders to appear in court for a deportation hearing.
While their cases are being heard in immigration court, which usually takes several more years, they have the right to remain in the United States.
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