When Donald Trump and republicans started to campaign on ‘mass deportations’, I tried to clarify it early: what would and would not happen.
The left immediately mischaracterized this as armies of jack-booted Trump thugs pulling illegals out of their beds and raiding private homes. Raiding businesses loading them onto buses...etc.
And that, of course, was never going to happen. If you think this is what trump meant when he said ‘mass deportations’, you are living under a misconception.
I said early: there will not be mass deportations of otherwise ‘innocent’ illegal aliens. The vast majority of those that got in under Biden’s open borders are, unfortunately, here to stay.
And trump, himself, absolutely added to the perception that he was serious about moving 10 to 15- million illegals back to their home countries.
Which I wouldn’t be against.
But- the sort of roundups i just described for you aren’t going to happen. They would come off as ‘too mean’ to most Americans. Even if the majority of us-did- just vote for mass deportations.
Instead-what this is going to be is: we start deporting illegal criminals from America with a renewed zeal....and we dry up the government handouts that are allowing some of these illegals to camp out here for long periods of time- and any lures that those freebees have created.
You-will see- a new intolerance for so-called sanctuary cities and states. You-will see- ice agents going out of their way to do their jobs again-and by God-collect those illegal criminals before the lefty police depts let them go.
What you-will see- is a wave of so-called ‘self-deportations’ start to become evident.
This is nothing more than some illegals who are here- realizing they can’t get any more govt handouts to stay-and their prospects aren’t good here-and so they are going back home.
If trump and his team play this right-we -will see- probably hundreds of thousands or a few million self-deportations.
But you aren’t going to see the jackbooted thugs carrying little brown doe-eyed, crying illegal children out of homes and onto busses.
I’ll tell you right now. That won’t happen.
Listen to Vivek Ramaswamy, who was on ABC with Jonathan Karl this weekend...and listen to what is-not-said.
Bottom line: my immediate characterization of what this mass deportation ‘is’ and ‘is not’ going to be, was correct.
And even if we just deport the one criminal out of every eleven illegals who have come in under Joe Biden- that will amount to a mass deportation.
It will also leave the country a lot safer.
But-fully understanding that Trump and his minions might have been -intentionally-mischaracterizing what they were talking about- or were willing to do-in order to appeal to more voters-
Please now understand what is coming-and what is not.
The hens on the view yesterday were suggesting that Trump might even start deporting American citizens who had crossed him.
That’s just idiotic-and it’s irresponsible for a media outlet to even forward that nonsense.
CNN’s ‘resident conservative’, Scott Jennings, also had this take, when he was asked about trump naming Tom Homan as the border czar-in charge of deportations.
So- Jennings clarifies this won’t be forced roundups.
Now let’s move to Byron York who points out that-on the campaign trail- Donald Trump -has-been mentioning this would be a mass deportation of criminals-whether his supporters were really ‘hearing’ it.
So...you can decide if you’ve been misled...or if trump made it sound like ‘they’re all being sent back’...but they aren’t.
And the moment he started floating this mass deportation promise... I was saying... ‘the vision of this that you have in your head’ isn’t happening. Most illegals who have come in under Biden....Will Byron York stay.
The criminals. The gang members, the thugs, the terrorists, the newest arrivals that Biden let in.
Most of them-will be deported. Yes.
It’s one reason I said that Trump and the GOP need to make their first order of business in congress- a strong border enforcement bill.
Not an ‘immigration’ bill. A border bill. Border enforcement only.
Step one absolutely needs to be to bake ‘remain in Mexico’ into law. Bake changes to our idiotic asylum system into law. Make sure that no future presidential regime can do what joe Biden and this regime have done-and have complete lawlessness and open borders.... on their say-so.
First order of business needs to be to make sure this never happens again-
And with the overwhelming voter mandate Trump and the GOP have just been given- yes- i believe they can find six democrat senators to go along with them and clear the filibuster threshold in the senate to get this done.
I’m already seeing columns about how the new majority leader can ‘rig this’ or ‘ hang this’ on some other budget bill to get it thru....without democrat votes.
No.
Don’t try to finesse this. At least not initially.
Start by going straight at it: the American people want this border closed and controlled it is step one. After this pass, we will deal in good faith with democrats on larger immigration reforms to change the process that they insist is so broken-
But step one is close and control the border. Put it out there. Lay it at the feet of senate democrats. And i bet at least six of them agree to go along with it to get out from under these open borders issue and move on to immigration reform.
Remember- the main reason that Trump such a huge chunk of the Hispanic vote in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico was- these states have been flooded with illegals and residents want it stopped.
So go right at it-and get it done.
And if Chuck Schumer still has enough of a horse collar on his senate democrats not to allow that to happen-well then-
Then you start with the parliamentary measures and try to force them to eat it- along with some critical spending they want or need.
But Trump and the GOP just won a landslide election based largely on this issue. Border state democrats will go along with a strong border bill. I’d be shocked if it didn’t pass both houses without some sort of bipartisan vote.
Mike Johnson and the new senate majority leader should-lead-with a strong border bill. Item one on the agenda.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > I explain what a mass deportation really means.