WASHINGTON, DC - Since Donald Trump was elected president on November 5 and before he is even sworn in next month, his pending administration is already gaining traction in several areas, including the foreign wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, his threats to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and concerns from the radical left over some of his choices for key cabinet roles.
Nothing has roiled the radical left more, however, than Trump’s threat to implement a mass deportation program of illegal aliens.
Some Democrat politicians in states from Colorado to Massachusetts have vowed to ban cooperation between their law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in attempting to facilitate Trump’s mass deportation program.
In light of that, the incoming administration is considering a proposal to give local sheriffs more power to assist in deporting illegal aliens from the US. The administration would seek to expand a federal program that would grant them authority to act as immigration agents, the Independent Sentinel reports, citing a Wall Street Journal report.
Under the proposal, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program would be expanded so that sheriff's deputies could question and detain suspected illegal aliens during their routine duties.
Section 287(g), which was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1986 under President Clinton, grants ICE permission to collaborate with state and local law enforcement to identify and deport “incarcerated criminal noncitizens.” This program, known as the 287 (g) program, has been a key tool in immigration enforcement for decades. Both President-elect Trump and his incoming border czar, Tom Homan, have stated that violent criminal illegal aliens would be the initial focus of the mass deportation program.President Trump plans to expand the 287(g) program, empowering local sheriffs to act as immigration agents. This move aims to enhance immigration enforcement by allowing deputies to question and detain suspected illegal immigrants during routine duties. pic.twitter.com/XUsuA0OKAY
— MAG🔫1775🇺🇸 (@Mar50cC5O) December 1, 2024
Section 287(g), a voluntary program, allows participating local agencies to alert ICE of any illegal alien in their custody or hold the illegal in jail for immigration authorities, however, only after the illegal alien perpetrators have been arrested on separate criminal charges.
Under Trump, the program would be expanded by reviving a “task force” model. This model allowed deputies to make immigration stops and arrests. Homan favors the task force model, which was phased out under Obama in 2012.
It is believed that more frequent arrests act as a deterrent to illegals entering the country, and by empowering more sheriffs it would accomplish that.
According to the Wall Street Journal: Under one plan being considered, billions of federal dollars that currently reimburse nonprofits and cities for helping newly arrived migrants at the border would be redirected to local law enforcement agencies that turn immigrants over to ICE, people involved in the planning said. This redirection could significantly bolster the resources of these agencies, potentially leading to an increase in immigration enforcement activities.
Trump’s plans remain unclear, and some point to practical limits on how many people could be deported, given an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants [aliens] in the country.
The 11 million number has been called into question numerous times since that number has been consistently used for the past 17 years. Sources say that just over the past four years since Biden was inaugurated, a number of illegal aliens at least that high have entered the U.S. Some estimates say that at least 20 million illegals are currently living in the U.S.
