Tenpenny Throwback Thursday
Trump's Mass Deportation Plan
President-elect Trump has vowed mass deportation of 15 to 20 million people thought to be in the United States illegally. Red state governors are squarely behind Trump, while blue state governors and the liberal mainstream media are screaming bloody murder that Trump is Hitler, deportation is inhumane and that it will effect everything from farming to food.
I was reading back through old files and I came across an article I wrote on November 13, 2016. Trump had just been elected the first time, as the 45th President of the United States. You might smile when you realize the beginning of my article read, “Today’s Hoopla: Trump vows to deport millions of undocumented immigrants immediately.”
When we hear Trump talk about using the military to assist with deportation, and when we hear his new border czar Tom Homan suggest that people self-deport, my article below makes total sense. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the more we realize we are in a narrative war fueled by the mainstream media. If only they would lay out the truth, plain and simple, as I have below, things would be so much clearer and easier. Here is my 2016 article in its entirety.
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The Sunday Morning TV political interviews resulted in many print headlines about President-elect Donald Trump’s intention to deport millions of illegals with criminal records. The screams from the liberals have already steadily increased to a roar, which made me scratch my head. If an American entered any foreign country in the world without legal paperwork, they would be deported, even if they had no criminal record. Why has America not followed the same rules?
I decided to do a little digging into the process of deportation. Would it be possible to deport millions of undocumented illegals from the country, all at the same time? Has this been done before? Is there a legal precedent for this?
Interestingly, there is.
In the late 1990s, Congress passed laws to deport and punish foreign-born people who enter and remain in the U.S. unlawfully—that is, without a visa, green card, or other official permission. Two methods are available to LEGALLY remove illegal residents: Returns, referred to as ‘voluntary departures’ and Removals, the formal process of deportation.
A return is “the confirmed, voluntary removal of a non-citizen, ordered to leave the country, but not ordered via formal deportation proceedings.” The person must leave within 60 or 120 days. This allows time to button up current affairs: sell real estate, terminate leases, close bank accounts, make future living arrangements, etc. If they have been an illegal resident for 180 to 364 days, they could be barred from returning for up to 3 years.
Voluntary departure does not carry with it the stigma of deportation, but very few criteria are available for a long-time illegal resident to appeal for “voluntary departure.” Obviously, this option is not available to felons, those with criminal records or those who have been engaged in terrorist activities. The government prefers to use voluntary departure, when possible, to save the cost associated with deportation, which is not inconsequential. For example, in 2010 ICE deported almost 393,000 people. At nearly $12,500 per person, the government cost was nearly $5 billion, a cost that can be attributed to not controlling the borders in the first place.
A removal is “the confirmed, compulsory departure of a non-citizen based on an order of deportation from an immigration judge or official.” The person must leave by an exact date, usually within 30 days. A deported non-citizen may not return to the U.S. for up to 20 years, or may even be permanently banned, depending on the reason for deportation.
A story on this website – http://www.insidegov.com – ranks “Every Modern US President from Worst to First.” Each president’s page has a tab marked “IMMIGRATION” – and to my surprise, every president listed has deported millions illegal and undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
Between 1993 and 2000, President Bill Clinton deported 11,421,259 persons and removed 869,646 persons (total=12,290,905).
Between 2001 and 2008, President GW Bush deported 8,316,311 persons and oversaw the voluntary removal of 2,021,539 persons (total=10,337,850).
By comparison, between 2009 and 2014, President Obama deported and removed only 4,377,910.
Once again, the media and the liberal left are creating hype over nothing. Their rhetoric is a continued attack on attempts to Make America Great Again. Everyone should welcome the removal of millions of undocumented, illegal criminals from our cities. What’s wrong with these people?
Could this action come with an expensive price tag? Yes – but it is a one-time expense toward reestablishing proper immigration policies for the U.S., policies that are tightly enforced by every other country in the world.
The penalties for illegally residing in the U.S. have been in place for nearly 30 years. President-elect Donald Trump is not doing anything radical; he is simply enforcing existing law.
Let us hope Trump gets plenty of wise counsel here. This topic and this initiative are fraught with peril, for his administration and for the nation. Not because this isn’t, prima facile, the right thing to do if done right. Rather because it might not be the wise thing to do. The victory, if any, could be a Pyrrhic one. First of all, the challenges in execution will be enormous and incredibly disruptive to the nation. Just to bring this down to ground level, in the past year I have remodeled 2 homes and sold four in different parts of the country. All of this required a great deal of contract labor. All of the contract labor, 100% of it, was foreign born, mostly Hispanic but also from places such as Russia and Romania. Universally they were skilled, hard working and did a good job. Universally they spoke very little English, most just enough to get by. Most were under 40, average age around 30. I had concluded from this that none of them had been in the country more than a few years although I admit this is an unknown. I also concluded that most of them were probably here illegally. Not certainly, but probably. So if you use your imagination and multiply this little story by your telephone number you might come to grasp what I am getting at here. Yes we want the criminals and terrorists out of our country, legal or illegal for that matter. But taking this project on in a “one size fits all” approach using the sclerotic and uncooperative resources of the government sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, for many hardworking immigrants and for the nation.
ALL immigration should be done legally. Period! My family and I waited in displaced camps in Germany after the war. We had to be immunized, checked, sponsored and only then were we granted the right to come to the US. Big difference: we were not a drain on any taxpayer, got jobs, worked hard and most importantly, ASSIMILATED! We did not demand this country accept our ways. 🌻