Trump promised the ‘largest deportation’ in American history. Here’s how he might start

Morning Edition delves into promises that newly elected President Donald Trump said he would keep in his second term. NPR’s Steve Inskeep asks immigration policy expert Andrew Selee about Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants.

What Trump said about deporting immigrants

During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised: “On day one, I will launch the largest criminal deportation program in the history of America.” He was referring to ‘Operation Wetback’ from 1954. an effort ordered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Government estimates showed that more than a million mostly Mexican immigrants and some U.S. citizens were rounded up. The program owes its official name to a racist term for Mexicans who swam or waded across the Rio Grande.

He also said he would use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of undocumented migrants from the US and dismantle “any criminal migrant network operating on US soil” during a campaign rally on October 25.

Trump could start by trying to remove new arrivals and expand deportation guidelines

Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said Trump’s mass deportation plan could start with the removal of hundreds of thousands of newcomers admitted under programs instituted by President Biden.

“The first thing we know he will almost certainly do is cancel the humanitarian parole for people who received it, people who came through CBP One, this app that people use to schedule an appointment to cross the border to come across,” Selee said.

He also raised the possibility that Trump would go after people with Temporary Protected Status, a limited status offered to people displaced from their home countries by extreme circumstances, and people admitted under a program offered to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

Selee also said Trump could change Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation guidelines so the agency can more freely arrest undocumented immigrants and place them in deportation proceedings.

“That’s something that changed under the Biden administration, where they were mostly going after people with criminal records or people who posed a threat to national security,” Selee said.

Selee also says Trump has talked about expanding detention facilities: “But whether or not he will be able to use military bases or other federal facilities and whether or not he will try to use the military itself, and that would require him to go back to the (Alien Enemies Act of 1798).

Trump could argue for using the more than 200-year-old law to override due process and justify the use of military aid to arrest and detain people without legal status.

Selee added that people living in Republican-controlled states are much more likely to face enforcement actions.

“We saw that during the last Trump administration. There have been very successful enforcement efforts against people who are here illegally in red states because local law enforcement has been willing to cooperate,” Selee said.

He added that while law enforcement in blue states did not outright refuse to cooperate, they have not devoted significant resources to working with immigration enforcement.

What Trump’s team says

NPR asked Trump’s transition team if the newly elected president had more specific details about how his plan to carry out mass deportations would begin. Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt issued the following statement in response:

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a wide margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made during the campaign. He will make it happen.”

Trump’s appointments signal the seriousness of his enforcement actions

This week, Trump announced he would create Tom Homan his “border czar” who oversaw the North and South American borders. Homan led ICE as an actor for about a year and a half during his first term. Grenstsaar is not an official cabinet position and it is unclear exactly what role Homan would play.

Before the election, Homan said enforcement would focus on immigrants who “pose a threat first to public safety and to national security.” He also indicated that more workplace raids could happen.

A CBS journalist Homan asked during an interview in October if family separations could be avoided during mass deportations, especially in the case of children of U.S. citizens with undocumented parents. Homan responded by saying, “Families can be deported together.”

Trump has also announced this the expected return of Stephen Millerthe hardline immigration restrictionist seen as the architect of the Travel ban for Muslims and the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of children from their parents at the southern border. The reunification of approximately 1,400 children with their families had not yet been confirmed from April this year.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was also tapped to lead Homeland Securitythe cabinet that oversees immigration benefits and enforcement. Noem has deployed National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border several times in recent years.