President-elect Donald Trump could start targeted deportations of illegal immigrants as early as his very first day in office, and it would be within his administrative power to do so, according to a former U.S. Border Patrol chief.
During an interview with Fox News, former U.S. Border Patrol chief and former acting ICE Director Ron Vitiello said it is within the Trump administration’s capabilities to start targeting deportations of illegal criminals, despite immigrant advocacy groups and Democrats saying they are planning to fight the mass deportation plan.
When asked why sanctuary jurisdictions would object to deporting illegal criminals, Vitiello called these actions “reckless” and “destructive,” and noted such policies are “against the interests of public safety.”
“Sanctuary jurisdictions — that’s reckless, destructive policy, and we see it all over the place, right? New York technically is a sanctuary, the whole entire state of California — many jurisdictions throughout the United States. It’s against the interest of public safety in those locations; it’s against the interest of the rule of law.” Vitiello said.
Vitiello noted there are already over 1 million illegal criminal migrants who have gone through the immigration process and are now awaiting deportation, further adding ICE and Enforcement and Removal Operations [ERO] are more than capable of doing the job safely and professionally.
“About 1.3 million who have already seen a judge in immigration court, have been ordered deported because they came into the country illegally or are illegal, and also committed crimes. Taking those people off the streets makes us all safer, and so the sooner it starts, the better off we are.” Vitiello said.
When asked how soon targeted deportations of illegal criminals could begin, Vitiello said it was a “day one capability.”
“This is a day one capability, there are men and women at the ERO, at ICE in every field location that has fugitive operations teams, they are probably gathering targets now and can move out on the operation as soon as they can,” Vitiello said.
Operations would need to be scaled up, according to Vitiello, because over the past four years there have been around 11 million encounters at the border, of which 85% have been released into the interior of the U.S.
