Washington, DC — Yesterday, reporting from the New York Times and other outlets highlighted more troubling details about the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and related day one plans to transform nativist rhetoric into reality.
The Times story, “Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations,” (excerpted in detail below) includes new specifics on how the incoming administration plans to deport as many people as they can, as well as revelations that the Trump team plans to gut the 14th amendment, not just through the courts, but by stopping “issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents in a bid to end birthright citizenship.”
To some experts on the law, the immediate reaction to this and other proposals is “hey, he can’t do that.” Unfortunately, while there are a host of legal guardrails and operational issues designed to hamstring an extreme President’s agenda and that may delay or derail some of the Trump team’s efforts, we don’t think the new administration or its early appointments, nominations, nor Trump’s track-record, signal an administration planning to go slowly while they adhere to the rule of law.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Trump is following through on his promises and we all should plan accordingly. Yes, the Trump team is trying to purposefully sow fear and chaos among immigrant communities and chill political opposition through threats of retribution. Yet their signals through appointments and nominations are sobering signals that this is real and what’s to come. They’ll aim to deport first and ask questions about due process, congressional oversight and legal considerations later, while attempting to silence dissenters or concern through loyalist appointments and a dizzying array of initial actions.
Relatedly, the revelation that the Trump administration seems intent to go for broke in their attempt to gut the 14th Amendment through the executive branch is deeply troubling. A Republican Party that still claims to revere the U.S. Constitution seems willing to rip it up unilaterally when it comes to fundamental principles that were fought and won through the Civil War. That same Republican Party, which championed the war against slavery and Reconstruction, seems poised to toss out a century and a half of legal and moral precedent on what it means to be an American citizen.”
Key excerpts from the New York Times reporting from Charlie Savage and Michael Gold, “Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations,” include:
“In interviews with The New York Times during the Republican primary campaign … Stephen Miller, said that military funds would be used to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries … The Trump team believes that such camps could enable the government to accelerate deportations of undocumented people who fight their expulsion from the country. The idea is that more people would voluntarily accept removal instead of pursuing a long-shot effort to remain in the country if they had to stay locked up in the interim …
…Mr. Trump’s team said it had developed a multifaceted plan to significantly increase the number of deportations, which it thought could be accomplished without new legislation from Congress, although it anticipated legal challenges.
Other elements of the team’s plan include bolstering the ranks of ICE officers with law enforcement officials who would be temporarily reassigned from other agencies, and with state National Guardsmen and federal troops activated to enforce the law on domestic soil under the Insurrection Act. The team also plans to expand a form of due-process-free expulsions known as expedited removal, which is currently used near the border for recent arrivals, to people living across the interior of the country who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years.
And the team plans to stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents in a bid to end birthright citizenship.”
Additional Resources
- Read the new analysis from America’s Voice legal advisor David Leopold, “Trump’s Plan to Gut the 14th Amendment and Redefine Citizenship”
- Read the America’s Voice assessment of what’s to come, “Shock and Awful: Unsparing, Indiscriminate, and Costly Mass Deportations,” with 7 key points about the Trump mass deportation agenda.
