Getting their marching orders from 73-year-old President Donald Trump, Immigration, Customs and Enforcement [ICE] plans to deport million of illegal aliens who’ve crossed the borders recently. “Next week, ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United State,” Trump tweeted today. Holding a campaign rally in Orlando, Fl. Today, Trump hopes to launch his 2020 campaign based on stopping illegal immigration, something that’s only gotten worse since his presidency. “They will be removed as fast as they come in,” Trump tweeted, without saying how understaffed ICE is supported to deport potentially millions on undocumented immigrants. Trump battled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for border wall funding last year.
With the border crisis more in the news than ever, Trump won the PR battle with Pelosi and Schumer, convincing the public that the border crisis is real. When Pelosi and Schumer told Trump last years they wouldn’t give him one red nickel for border wall funding, Trump shut down the government Sept. 22, 2018, lasting until Jan. 25, finally ending the shut down when it became clear he’d get at least some funding for the border fence. Pelosi and Schumer—and the mainstream press—denied that there was any border crisis, only now, for obvious reasons, concede there’s a national security problem. Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs if they didn’t commit military resources to stopping the caravans from Guatemala, Hondurans and El Salvador. Agreeing finally to help, Mexico averted the sanctions and now shows more commitment to stopping immigrant flows.
In a recent development, Guatemala “is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement,” Trump tweeted, hopefully serving as a conduit for illegal immigrant flows from Honduras, El Salvador and other countries in Latin American and Africa. Trump plans to lay it all out today in Orlando, reminding attendees that his administration is the only one in recent history to do anything about the immigration crisis at the U.S. southern border. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence announced last week that Guatemala has agreed to serve as a safe third country, keeping northbound immigrants from reaching the U.S. border. With family in the U.S., it’s doubtful most northbound illegal immigrants will stop voluntarily for an extended time in Guatemala. Like other Central American nations, Guatemala lacks the economy needed to support even partial employment for its 16.91 million population.
ICE won’t have an easy time rounding up the million recent illegal aliens that have crossed the U.S. border. While it’s possible ICE will nab some, it’s doubtful that they can catch the vast majority of illegal aliens. Most have already slipped through the cracks and won’t be easy to track down. “It’s not like the president just woke up and thought of this idea,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Immigration studies. ICE wants to go after illegal immigrants with deportation orders, not followed up by the courts or law enforcement. Whatever legal deportation order, ICE inspectors won’t have an easy time tracking down individuals with existing court orders. “And they’re going to be focused on people already who have a final order of removal. And they also want people to understand that family case are on the table,” said Vaughan.
When Trump speaks today to his campaign rally, he’s going to share the good news about ICE finally enforcing the law. But when reality sinks in, there’s little ICE can do to find illegal aliens that are not in U.S. custody. Illegal aliens that don’t shop up for court hearings are called “runaway aliens,” offer no reliable way to capture them once out of U.S. custody. ICE officials contend that many of the illegal aliens “lodge phony asylum claims only to be no-shows at court and are ordered removed in absentia.” ICE officials lack the resources to find “runaway aliens” once they’re out of federal or state detention. When Trump takes the podium today in Orlando, he’ll have a lot of good news about illegal immigration, all of which is largely pie-in-the-sky. While there’s nothing wrong with building out a border wall, enforcing U.S. border laws is next to impossible for ICE.
Talking about how ICE is going to enforce court-ordered deportation orders, it all sound good on the campaign stump but doesn’t amount to a hill-of-beans. ICE doesn’t have the resources needed to track down any “runaway aliens” who’ve skipped out on court appearances. “There are more than 1 million illegal aliens who have been issued final deportation orders by federal judges yet remain at large in the country,” said an unnamed federal official. ICE is already stretched to the breaking point, unable to roundup the so-called “runaway aliens,” skipping deportation hearings. No matter how costly-and-time-consuming deportation proceedings, ICE can only do so much to enforce the court orders. Threatening Mexico with tariffs has little practical value when it comes to ICE finding the millions of illegal aliens that have already eluded authorities and have no intent of complying with federal law.
