Exclusive: Border Czar Warns of Mass Deportations, Collateral Arrests
As President-elect Donald Trump’s team prepares for Day One of mass deportations, border czar Tom Homan has warned that many illegal immigrants without criminal histories will likely get caught up in the arrests. Homan shared new details about how the incoming administration plans to arrest, detain, and remove hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal immigrants living in the United States.
Immigrants who have only been accused of entering the country illegally will be subject to deportation, even if they are a family member or residing with someone who is the target of an arrest warrant. In sanctuary cities, which do not allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to transfer illegal immigrants from local and state police jails to federal custody, expect a lot of collateral arrests, Homan said.
The Trump administration plans to start by arresting people who have criminal histories and 1.4 million who have been ordered deported by a judge but have not been removed. There are over 700,000 criminal aliens with criminal convictions, Homan said.
Under Trump, ICE’s parameters for arrests will be greatly widened to include anyone who is unlawfully present in the country. ICE agents will go to people’s homes, places of work, or in between to arrest someone. Trump has promised to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation effort.
The plans are already being drawn up, with ICE and the Trump administration set to start planning how to expand deportations on Day One. Every ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office will be given the direction to begin looking for, arresting, detaining, and removing those in the United States who have been arrested for a crime.
Homan is also keen on getting military aircraft to help move people in custody from one place to another, saying he hopes to use them as a force multiplier. The Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the process of acquiring military planes.