Kerby Anderson
Donald Trump hasn’t even been sworn into office, and yet governors in blue states and the legacy media are already criticizing a deportation program that hasn’t even begun. Unfortunately, some of the comments aren’t merely hostile but grossly inaccurate. If we are going to have a worthwhile debate about deportation, then let’s get accurate facts on the table.
First, Tom Homan, the newly designated “border czar,” has made his three-step process very clear. The primary focus will be the deportation of national security threats, with a secondary focus on individuals with a criminal record in this country or their country of origin.
Second, there are more than 1.2 million people in this country illegally that have had full legal due process and have received a final deportation order from an immigration judge. Those were the numbers as of September a year ago. The actual number may be close to 1.5 million to 1.6 million.
Byron York points out that in an ironic twist, the Trump administration may end up using the Mayorkas Memorandum created by the current Secretary of Homeland Security in the Biden administration. The memo lays out the rules for deporting illegal immigrants.
It sets as the first priorities the “apprehension and removal of noncitizens who are a threat to our national security, public safety, and border security.” It explains that the first group was terrorists and spies. The second group were criminals. The third group were those who are a threat to border security. Those would be immigrants who were apprehended after November 2020.
Critics are already howling about the possibility of deportations, and the decibels are certain to increase. But Americans need to know that these first deportations will be the removal of people most of us don’t want in this country.