A section of the current border wall in Tijuna, Mexico. James Reyes/Public Domain.
President-elect Donald Trump revealed that he has plans to immediately deport two to three million illegal immigrants. CBS News. In an interview with CBS News on 60 Minutes, he said that the millions of illegals would be deported or incarcerated because they are criminals, drug dealers and gang members. After those people are deported, his next focus will be securing the border and building a wall, though he admits that some of the border could be fences as well. After both of those goals are accomplished, Trump said he would look at the rest of the immigrants in the country illegally, describing some of them as terrific people.
My Comment:
Some people are saying that Trump has broken his campaign promise on this issue already. Those people are fools because Trump never said he was going to deport everyone. Multiple times in the campaign he said that some illegals were decent people and that they might have a chance at getting back in. He also was always consistent about his greatest concern being the large numbers of criminals and drug dealers crossing the border.
I also don't think there is anything inconsistent with him proposing some of the wall being fencing. Saying that is come kind of campaign promise broken is just arguing semantics. Either way there will be a barrier that will make it more difficult for immigrants to breach the border, so assuming he can pull it off, even a full fence would be better then what we have now. We do have some border barriers now, which is not something people mention often. A quick check shows that of the 1,954 mile border with Mexico, 580 miles already have either a pedestrian border fence or vehicle fences. Trump's plan would just expand that and would reinforce weaker areas.
What's my take on Trump's plan? Well, I'm glad that many of these people are getting deported. It never made any sense whatsoever to let people who have broken the laws of this country, and are here illegally, stay. Getting rid of those people immediately is the right thing to do, morally and legally, and I am glad that we are finally going to start doing so with gusto. This should be a priority for our government and though we do deport criminals already, there are still far too many of them here.
What about the rest of the illegal immigrants though? The sources I have seen says that there are roughly 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. While getting right of two or three million would help the problem, especially when those immigrants are the worst of the worst, letting almost 10 million stay would not be a good thing.
Which makes me wonder if more won't be deported. I am guessing that not all of them would be. From what Trump has said in the past, he is extremely wary of deporting people in a way that breaks up families. Though he made some noise in the primaries about it, he does seem to think people that have "anchor babies" might be allowed to stay.
But I think he will eventually get around to deporting others who are here illegally. People that haven't put down roots and have no family links to this country. I have no idea how many or who gets to stay for sure, but my guess is that he will be deporting more then the two to three million he talked about in the CBS report.
Should Trump people be upset by that? I don't think so. It's way more then Hillary Clinton would have deported and I am assuming that the number doesn't count all the people that are turned away at the border. Barack Obama, for all his faults, was pretty good at deporting people trying to enter the country, even if he wouldn't deport anyone else. During his presidency, he deported around 2.5 million, the vast majority of which were either criminals or people caught at the border. Trump will add to that number and will be much more aggressive then Barack Obama was.
What about the border wall? As always, I don't think the wall will actually be that effective. People will always try to dig under it or go around it. But there will also be people who will be deterred by the inconvenience and I think it will have some effect. The deportations will have a larger one though. I mostly like the wall for the psychological effects and the fact that it's a major jobs program for the border states.
Does it make sense for some parts of the border to have a fence instead of a wall? Sure. There are some pretty barren areas that very few people would even try to cross anyways. In those areas, fencing would be fine. But in more populated areas, a stronger and tougher border wall would help more.
I also have to say that there are differences between illegal immigrants. The best ones are people that came to find a better life and have mostly assimilated. Some are people that just overstayed their visas and others are here because their families are here. There are also criminals, rapists and drug dealers as well, but all of these people have broken the law. We might be able to cut a deal with some of these people, but I really do hope that Trump is able to get rid of the worst of the worst.
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