Trump's New Immigration Line Is Consistent - Not Inconsistent - With His Arizona Speech

Yesterday, I released a detailed analysis of why what Donald Trump outlined in his Arizona immigration speech was mass deportation. Again, in the last 24 hours, he and his surrogates have attempted to muddy the waters. Here is a quick explanation for why what Trump said last night on Fox was consistent – not inconsistent – with the plan he spelled out on Wednesday.

The bottom line: Trump has eliminated legalization as an option for anyone who has ever entered the country illegally; said all 11m must leave the country with no exception; creates a massive unprecedented, ubiquitous, 24/7 deportation force; and even after all this if there is any undocumented immigrant left in the US he has said there is no chance for legalization or visa of any kind. So what exactly is there to “sit back and assess?” He has already forestalled anyone who has come in illegally doing anything other than leaving the country. Let’s review the key passages from his speech:

11m Must Leave, No Chance of Legalization Ever – “For those here today illegally who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and only one route: to return home.... Our message to the world will be this: you cannot obtain legal status, or become a citizen of the United States, by illegally entering our country.”
The offer from Trump is for families to quit their jobs, sell their homes/break their leases, remove their kids from school and return home to a country they no longer know w/o any guarantee of return. For most undocumented immigrations the wait to come back into the US will be at least 20 years. This is in effect forced removal.

All 11m Can Be Deported At Any Time – “But unlike this administration, no one will be immune or exempt from enforcement....Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation."

Establishment of Unprecedented, 24/7 Deportation Force – “There are at least 2 million criminal aliens now inside the country. We will begin moving them out day one, in joint operations with local, state and federal law enforcement. Beyond the 2 million, there are a vast number of additional criminal illegal immigrants who have fled or evaded justice. But their days on the run will soon be over. They go out, and they go out fast.

Moving forward, we will issue detainers for all illegal immigrants who are arrested for any crime whatsoever, and they will be placed into immediate removal proceedings. We will terminate the Obama Administration’s deadly non-enforcement policies that allow thousands of criminal aliens to freely roam our streets.
We will restore the highly successful Secure Communities program. We will expand and revitalize the popular 287(g) partnerships, which will help to identify hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens in local jails. ….The Davis-Oliver bill will enhance cooperation with state and local authorities to ensure that criminal immigrants and terrorists are swiftly identified and removed.

We are going to triple the number of ICE deportation officers. Within ICE, I am going to create a new special Deportation Task Force…..We’re also going to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents.”
Taken together this is a massive new, unprecedented national deportation force unlike anything seen in all of American history.

Conclusion – Trump’s plan is to create an unprecedented national, 24/7, deportation force by formally deputizing all federal, state and local law enforcement and adding significant new DHS capabilities in the immediate round up of several million people. At the same time, any undocumented immigrant will become once again a deportation priority. This means that while the new deportation force is rounding up the millions of “criminal aliens” any other undocumented immigrant may get caught up in the enforcement web and immediately deported. Finally, you will have been told by your government that you in fact must leave and there is no chance of you ever achieving legalization or a visa if you stay.

The strategy is that all of this taken together – the massive national raids; ubiquitous 24/7 deportation force; a universal removal order for all 11m, no chance of legalization or visa - will cause the rest of the undocumented population to “self-deport.” The expectation that there will be very few left after years of this effort (why Trump’s language last night on it taking a while was significant – a longer process will catch more non-criminals and is more threatening to those without criminal records); and that he has already said there is NO CHANCE anyone of them will get a visa or legalization.

So, again, how exactly he is being reasonable here? Suggesting a change in policy? What exactly will he have to “sit back and assess?”