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With a little more than a week until his inauguration, Donald Trump and his team are trying to plan the executive orders that will fulfill his campaign promise of closing the U.S.–Mexico border and implementing mass deportation “on day one” — a task that comes with complications.
For months, Trump and his team have been looking for ways to bypass the traditional immigration legislative process to close the border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. But as January 20 draws closer, it’s unclear if they can succeed.
Trump is reportedly considering invoking Title 42 — the public health order that allows authorities to block people from entering the United States to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
Re-instating Title 42 would effectively shut down the border by preventing migrants from certain countries from entering the U.S. — but it would also require Trump to identify a communicable disease that poses a threat to U.S. citizens.
Trump and his team of loyal anti-immigration advisers, such as Stephen Miller, used Title 42 during the Covid-19 pandemic to expel people from entering the U.S.
The team has spent the past few months trying to identify a disease that they can use, according to The New York Times. Should they fail to find one, they could make a broad claim about possible unfamiliar diseases, though it’s unclear if that would hold up in a court.
While time is running out to iron out the complications of immigration-related executive orders, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has reportedly begun trying to manage expectations with Republican members of Congress.
Homan — the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement now tasked with implementing Trump’s deportation operation — told lawmakers that deporting millions of people will require extensive funding and resources which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) currently does not have, according to CNN.
To carry out a mass deportation of its kind, the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that advocates for fairer immigration policies, estimates it would cost $88 billion — about $80 billion more than what ICE is allocated now.
“His message is not code talk for, ‘Nothing is going to happen’ or, ‘We’re going to slow down’ or whatever,” Republican Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada told CNN.
“But it is a responsible policy approach to getting stuff done quickly, but also in the context of realistic evaluation of how to best get that done and fulfill the promises that the incoming administration has made,” he said.
Trump has insisted there is “no price tag” on carrying out the deportations.
One way the president-elect and his team could fund his immigration plans would be to declare a national emergency, which would unlock funding within the Department of Defense.
Trump has already said he wants to use the U.S. military to help carry out his mass deportation plan by having them partner with state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws.
The president-elect could also declare a national emergency to continue building the border wall, build immigration detention centers, and invoke the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize local and state law enforcement to carry out the responsibilities of ICE.
“President Trump will enlist every federal power and coordinate with state authorities to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families,” according to Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary. “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness.”
