WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump would carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in his second term, using local law enforcement, the National Guard and possibly the U.S. military, according to a wide-ranging interview he did with Time magazine.
“When we talk about military, I generally talk about National Guard,” the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee said an interview which was released on Tuesday.
Trump has vowed to launch a massive deportation effort on his first day in office, reminiscent of immigration policies in the 1950s.
“I wouldn’t have a problem with using the military per se,” he said. “We must have law and order in our country. And whatever gets us there, I think the National Guard will do the job.”
The interviewer, Time magazine national political reporter Eric Cortellessa, asked how Trump could justify the use of the military in lithe of the Posse Comitatus Act. a law from 1878 This removed the military from civilian law enforcement. “Well, they’re not civilians,” Trump replied. “These are people who are not legally in our country.”
The Biden campaign released a statement Tuesday evening criticizing Trump’s comments and saying he would use the military to separate immigrant families.
“Trump’s repetition of troubling and dangerous rhetoric contradicts the essence of who we are as a nation,” said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, co-chair of the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign. “Not only is he committed to “To reinstate the cruel, systematic policy of ripping mothers from their children from his time in office – he promises to go further and use the military and law enforcement to enforce his cruel, anti-American and ineffective policies.” Immigration policy.
“During my first term in Congress, I saw firsthand the dire consequences of his language and policies: my community fell victim to his sustained and consistent xenophobic rhetoric when a white supremacist – who posted a smear campaign using Trump’s own words online – targeted Latinos in “El slaughtered.” Paso on August 3, 2019. We can’t go back.”
Trump cited the deployment of the National Guard in Minneapolis in 2020. However, it was not Trump, but a Democrat Governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz, who activated the National Guard in response to massive protests after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd.
Floyd, a Black man, died as Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2022.
“We will use local law enforcement,” Trump said, adding that he wanted special immunity for police from prosecution.
“And we must give the police back the power and respect they deserve,” he said. “Well, there are going to be some mistakes, and there are certain bad people, and that’s a terrible thing. And you know, the police are constantly being prosecuted. And we want to give them immunity from prosecution if they do their jobs.”
Trump said he would create financial incentives for local and state police departments to participate in deportations.
“Well, there’s a chance some won’t want to participate, and they won’t share in the riches, you know,” Trump said.
It will likely face resistance from Democratic-led states and localities as well as legal challenges.
Trump did not elaborate on how much money he would ask Congress for his deportation plans. Control of Congress, now split between Republicans in the House of Representatives and Democrats in the Senate, could also shift after the fall elections.
Trump added that he would not rule out building mass detention centers to carry out mass deportations.
“It’s possible we do it to some extent, but we shouldn’t have to do much of it because we’ll pull them out as soon as we’re ready,” Trump said.
That policy is likely to face legal challenges, and Trump said he would follow any ruling from the Supreme Court, where he picked three of the nine justices, cementing a conservative court for decades.
“I have great respect for the Supreme Court,” he said.
Even though Trump also promised mass deportations in his first term, there were fewer deportations in the first four years than in the first term of the Obama administration.
In the first four years of the Obama administration, more than 1.5 million non-citizens were deported, and the first Trump administration deported more than 1.2 million non-citizens. according to the Department of Homeland Security.
However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration approved the public health tool Title 42 and barred more than 2 million migrants from applying for asylum.
