September 28, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump warned Wednesday that he would kick out hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have entered the country under two key Biden administration programs if he’s reelected.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said he would make the more than 1 million people who have entered the U.S. under the two programs leave: “Get ready to leave because you’re going to be going out real fast.”
Trump railed against two immigration programs created by the Biden administration to encourage migrants not to come directly to the southern border to seek asylum and make the region less chaotic.
Trump has already promised a vast crackdown on immigration if he’s reelected, including a vow to carry out mass deportations of migrants. He made similar pledges during previous campaigns, but during his time as president, deportations never topped 350,000.
Following previous pledges for mass deportations of migrants, Trump and his chief immigration policy architect, Stephen Miller, are bringing more specifics on how he plans to carry them out in a second White House term, such as invoking wartime powers, relying on like-minded governors and using the military.
However, any efforts to deport migrants on such a large scale would almost certainly run into legal, logistical and financial challenges.
Immigration advocacy groups say that Trump’s promises of mass deportations are sowing fear among migrant communities.
Esther Sung is the legal director for Justice Action Center. When Republican-led states sued to end the sponsorship program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans the organization represented Americans who sponsored migrants to come to the U.S. and wanted to preserve the program.
A federal judge in Texas allowed the program to continue, saying the states hadn’t proved they suffered financial harm because of it.