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If elected next November, former President Donald Trump considers as one of his first measures the mobilization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, along with the FBI, the DEA, federal prosecutors, the National Guard and even agents of state and local law enforcement, to carry out deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Likewise, the military would build huge sites near the border to hold people awaiting deportation. Trump’s plans, broken down in advance by Axios, a media outlet that cites a source “familiar with the project,” would evoke scenes from the 1950s when more than a million undocumented Mexican immigrants were deported under President Eisenhower.
“Donald Trump’s plan to crack down on immigration includes using a variety of tools to deport millions of people in the United States each year, from obscure laws to military funding and law enforcement officials at all levels of government.” , Axios teases, citing an obscure section of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to immediately arrest and deport some immigrants with criminal records.
During the 1950s more than a million undocumented Mexican immigrants were deported under President Eisenhower. It was the largest deportation operation in United States history.
The vast majority of Americans alive today have never seen anything like it.
The operation used military-style tactics to round up and house up to 1.3 million people from Mexico, and even some Mexican-Americans who were U.S. citizens. , according to federal immigration records.
Scholars say there could have been many more.
Scholars and analysts cited by Axios point out that Trump’s plan is not clear and there is a lot of skepticism about whether he will be able to carry it out. Trump has made similar promises in the past, but deportation levels during his presidency never reached those of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
In any case, “the human costs of Trump’s plan – for families, the economies of local communities, employers and more – could affect the entire country,” analysts say.
Source: La Jornada
With information from Axios