How will mass deportation from the USA work?

[up_the_junction]

I was reading the New Yorker, somehow I’d missed Trump’s promise to create a special task force":

The debate within the Trump campaign and the broader Republican Party was serious enough that, last week, Trump postponed a planned speech on immigration. When he finally spoke in Phoenix, last night, the speech became the greatest test of a theory that has taken hold among many elected officials who support Trump, even though they disagree with him on numerous issues: that Trump is malleable, that his policies can be shaped by establishment leaders, and that they can stamp out the white-identity politics that have given the Trump campaign its ballast.

Trump listened to and was pressured by many voices and groups hostile to—or at least skeptical of—his views on immigration: Conway, Christie, the R.N.C., his Hispanic advisers, the business community. And yet he still chose Bannon over Conway, the alt-right over the R.N.C., and ended up where he started, with a policy whose heart is deporting eleven million people, which would be one of the largest resettlements of human beings in modern history.

I guess it won’t be 11 million. But say it’s a few million, how does that work … he says there will be a special deportation task force …

Will it include cattle trucks or maybe busses, given it’s so many will they be walked, corralled, to the border?

Will entire families go together or will the weak be assisted?

Will it happen at gun point, will there be court orders first or some kind of Homeland Security authority based on documentation offered - could there be patrols in poor neighborhoods rounding up deportees?

Maybe the New Yorker got this wrong?

[boffking]

It won’t. Congress won’t allow Trump to do this.

[up_the_junction]

A clear mandate from the people? That makes no sense, he’d have a democratic mandate.

[davida03801]

A lot of hysteria over not much, at least IMHO.

The USA with Trump as President (if he gets there) is not going to send away people who are here and working, maintaining families and living within the society rules of the law. Our sense of fairness won’t allow it. I understand a lot of hype of talk on it, but I just not see it happening.

However, the ones who have to be concerned are those working illegally and not within the bounds of the law. That is working under the table, or not working and just here collecting government money and funding for whatever, committing petty crimes, etc. For that group I think will be different.

[DrDeth]

@boffking

It won’t. Congress won’t allow Trump to do this.

The GOP congress, where the Tea party tail is wagging the dog? :dubious:

[DrDeth]

@davida03801

A lot of hysteria over not much, at least IMHO.

The USA with Trump as President (if he gets there) is not going to send away people who are here and working, maintaining families and living within the society rules of the law. Our sense of fairness won’t allow it. I understand a lot of hype of talk on it, but I just not see it happening.

However, the ones who have to be concerned are those working illegally and not within the bounds of the law. That is working under the table, or not working and just here collecting government money and funding for whatever, committing petty crimes, etc. For that group I think will be different.

“Our” sense of fairness won’t allow it? We are talking about a possible GOP Congress with trump as Prez. “Our sense of fairness” has nothing do with with those.

Few Illegals work under the table and fewer yet live on government benefits. The crime rate for immigrants is quite a bit lower than dudes born here.

[D_Anconia]

@boffking

It won’t. Congress won’t allow Trump to do this.

President Trump will have a phone and a pen.

[madsircool]

@boffking

It won’t. Congress won’t allow Trump to do this.

Congress can’t stop him if he is enforcing the law.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

It would involve moving more people than the US moved during World War Two.
Except, in WW2, most moved willingly, & almost all were young, able-bodied men.

We’d have to chase/hunt the victims down, arrest & restrain them, verify non-citizen status, & move them.
Including the Old, sick, & infants in arms.

We can’t afford it. The United States would go bankrupt.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@davida03801

The USA with Trump as President (if he gets there) is not going to send away people who are here and working, maintaining families and living within the society rules of the law.

<snip>

However, the ones who have to be concerned are those working illegally and not within the bounds of the law. That is working under the table

I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’re drawing. People here without a work visa are by definition working illegally and not within the bounds of the law, right?

[watchwolf49]

Around a million Mexicans were deported in 1954, perhaps another million fled in fear of deportation … so it’s been done before {Wikipedia Cite}.

[Czarcasm]

I take it nobody has explained to him the difference between a president and an emperor?

[JcWoman]

@DrDeth

“Our” sense of fairness won’t allow it? We are talking about a possible GOP Congress with trump as Prez. “Our sense of fairness” has nothing do with with those.

I’m inclined to agree. Our sense of fairness (at least mine and everybody I know) won’t allow the Guantanamo situation, and yet here we are. I feel like congress does whatever they damned well please and get away with it as long as they keep it hidden from the budget. And ideally out of the media, at least until it’s a done deal.

[bobot]

It’s going to be easy. As an example, let’s consider a wall (10 feet higher, now) across the entirety of our southern border. All you have to do is

[doorhinge]

@Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor

It would involve moving more people than the US moved during World War Two.
Except, in WW2, most moved willingly, & almost all were young, able-bodied men.

We’d have to chase/hunt the victims down, arrest & restrain them, verify non-citizen status, & move them.
Including the Old, sick, & infants in arms.

We can’t afford it. The United States would go bankrupt.

It would be simple enough to make it illegal for businesses to hire illegal aliens/undocumented workers. After all, Canadians and Columbians can not simply walk across the border into Mexico and begin working. There are rules.

[Human_Action]

@doorhinge

It would be simple enough to make it illegal for businesses to hire illegal aliens/undocumented workers. After all, Canadians and Columbians can not simply walk across the border into Mexico and begin working. There are rules.

It’s already illegal.

[DrDeth]

@doorhinge

It would be simple enough to make it illegal for businesses to hire illegal aliens/undocumented workers.

It already is.

[DrDeth]

@Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor

We can’t afford it. The United States would go bankrupt.

The GOP would just borrow the money and blame the deficit on the dems.

[slash2k]

@watchwolf49

Around a million Mexicans were deported in 1954, perhaps another million fled in fear of deportation … so it’s been done before {Wikipedia Cite}.

Actually, the real totals for deportations in Operation Wetback are probably closer to 250,000 or so, and possibly not even that high. (Another source, and another) The INS came up with the figure of 1.3 million by adding in the number of people who supposedly left of their own accord, for whom no actual count ever existed. (I know, you are shocked, shocked that a government official would ever over-estimate the success of a program.)

Other problems with Operation Wetback that reduce its applicability today:
[ul]
[li]Almost all were single (or at least unaccompanied) men–no families[/li][li]The vast majority were removed from the immediate border areas, with smaller operations in a few big cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, rather than this being a nationwide effort[/li][li]American citizens of Hispanic descent were among those swept up and deported[/li][li]People died. Some of the ships taking men back to Vera Cruz, e.g., were so overloaded and ill-kept that they arrived with fewer passengers than on departure, and nobody knows what happened in between. The drownings of some men aboard one vessel sparked outrage in Mexico.[/li][li]Everybody deported was sent back to Mexico, whereas today many of the illegal immigrants didn’t come from Mexico in the first place.[/li][/ul]

[up_the_junction]

@watchwolf49

Around a million Mexicans were deported in 1954, perhaps another million fled in fear of deportation … so it’s been done before {Wikipedia Cite}.

Well that’s interesting - this was the approach 50-60 years ago:

A total of 750 immigration and border patrol officers and investigators; 300 jeeps, cars and buses; and seven airplanes were allocated for the operation.[35] Teams were focused on quick processing, as planes were able to coordinate with ground efforts and quickly deport people into Mexico.[36] Those deported were handed off to Mexican officials, who in turn moved them into central Mexico where there were many labor opportunities.[37] While the operation included the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, its main targets were border areas in Texas and California.[38]

Overall, there were 1,078,168 apprehensions made in the first year of Operation Wetback

I guess you’ll need something on a bigger scale this time, you’re talking about percentage points of the overall national population.

So, back then, they just expanded the existing agencies. Maybe that could work.

I don’t understand how this could be legally opposed; if it’s a central plank in a new President’s election campaign effectively the people have spoken; you can’t ignore a totally fresh democratic mandate - what the hell point is there of holding elections otherwise.