The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, my father began carrying a copy of his U.S. passport everywhere he went.
“By that point, my dad had been an American citizen for over 25 years. He no longer considered Honduras his home. But he feared that wouldn’t matter in our Georgia town, its manicured lawns lined with “Make America Great Again” signs. If a cop pulled him over for any reason — or no reason at all — his tan skin and last name would be indictment enough. . . .
“My dad’s passport became a preemptive defense against our nation’s growing hostility toward immigrants. His fear wasn’t unfounded. . . .
“But why worry if my father is a U.S. citizen? Why worry if, as some say, he came here ‘the right way?’ The truth is that Trump’s immigration regime has the power to sweep up far more than undocumented immigrants.
“Five days after his inauguration in 2017, Trump set out to massively expand the scope of immigration ‘enforcement priorities.’
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses these priorities to determine which undocumented immigrants to target. But the Trump administration broadened ICE’s enforcement priorities so greatly that “everyone became a target,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, told USA Today.
“With limited resources, ICE has always been selective about who it targets for enforcement operations. Actual criminals who pose a danger to the public are the priority – not someone merely guilty of a civil immigration violation.
“Changing these priorities had an immediate impact on who was arrested during Trump’s first term. More and more people without any criminal history became victims of ‘so-called collateral arrests,’ Reichlin-Melnick said. . . .
“This approach has led to the deportation of American citizens. . . . ICE’s own statistics reveal an irony: by going after everyone, the Trump administration might make America less safe by diverting attention away from actual criminals. . . .
“Trump campaigned on carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. He said he plans to begin these deportations on day one.
“The economic toll would be enormous. The American Immigration Council estimates that deporting one million people per year would cost $88 billion annually. Removing all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States would take over a decade, with a total price tag of $967.9 billion.” – My Dad Has Been a Citizen for 40 Years. I’m Still Worried about Trump’s Immigration Plan, Melissa Cruz, USA Today, 12/1/24 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This article is typical of many pro-immigration pieces, in that it seeks to manipulate emotion to make its case. Specifically, the writer suggests that her father, a legal immigrant, faces deportation (a most unlikely prospect) if President-elect Trump keeps his promise to deport large numbers of illegal aliens. Is it possible that ICE agents could mistake a citizen for an illegal alien? Yes, it is possible, but this is no justification to suspend immigration law enforcement.
Commonly, we read of mistakes which caused innocent people to be imprisoned and even executed. Just because these mistakes happen, does it mean that we should refrain from enforcing all laws? No, it means that we should double down to eliminate mistakes as we enforce the law.
The underlying premise of this article, as with so much media commentary on immigration, is that illegal immigration really isn’t a crime, except maybe when an illegal alien commits a particularly heinous offense. But we should consider the logical conclusions of that premise, namely, that the laws we democratically enact are meaningless, that the distinction between citizen and noncitizen is meaningless, and that our existence as a sovereign nation with borders is of no importance. Those conclusions don’t offer our country much of a future.
The article quotes the American Immigration Council to the effect that deporting illegal immigrants would be prohibitively expensive. That assertion isn’t surprising, coming as it does from a far-left pro-immigration organization which receives funding from the open-borders zealot George Soros. It fails to mention an effective alternative to expensive deportations: attrition through enforcement. Under this approach, authorities would slowly but surely tighten immigration law enforcement, thus making it increasingly difficult for illegal aliens to live in the U.S. In this situation many will go home on their own. This self-deportation will spare U.S. taxpayers the cost of official deportation.
It would be refreshing if illegal alien advocates would admit that they really can nothing for our country’s rule of law. But that won’t happen because they can’t afford to admit their true motives.