(Worthy News)—President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors are formulating plans to deport illegal immigrants from the United States and exploring declaring a national emergency declaration that would allow the Trump administration to repurpose military assets to help Trump keep his campaign promise, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Discussions about increasing deportations began months before the election and have intensified since Trump’s victory, involving policy changes, according to sources close to the presidential transition, Congress members, and others familiar with the plans.
The proposed changes include revoking a Biden administration policy that directs U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement not to target immigrants in the country illegally unless they have committed other crimes and reforming the immigration court system to expedite cases.
The plan is to prioritize the deportation of roughly 1.3 million immigrants who have received final orders from immigration courts, along with those who have criminal convictions or charges.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the transition, stated: “The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
Trump’s advisers are considering declaring a national emergency at the border on his first day in office, which they believe would enable the redirection of Pentagon funds to build the wall and support immigrant detention and deportation.
The legality of this action is uncertain, yet transition team members believe it would permit the use of military bases for detaining immigrants and enable military involvement in deporting the millions of illegal immigrants.
Trump’s mass deportation plan, set to be the largest in history, could cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. Despite this, Trump has downplayed the financial implications. “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not—really, we have no choice,” he told NBC News, justifying the strategy by saying, “when people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here.”