Trump immigration picks show crackdown intent, but challenges await

LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES, NOV 14 (AFP/APP/DNA):Donald Trump’s appointment of hard-liners to key immigration posts signals a determination to fulfill campaign pledges of mass deportations and border crackdowns, but it will be an uphill battle, analysts say.

Illegal immigration was a key issue for voters in the US election, and Trump’s promises to seal the border and carry out the largest deportation program in American history appeared to resonate at the ballot box.

Actually implementing campaign promises, however, could prove tricky, immigration experts say.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that with around 13-15 million undocumented migrants in the country — not over 20 million as Trump often says — mass deportation is “not realistic.”

Tens of thousands of new personnel would be required to staff hundreds of detention centers and courtrooms across the country, he said, all of it coming at an extraordinary financial and administrative cost.

“Our estimates were that it would take over a decade to (deport 13 million people),” he told AFP.

“That’s only presuming that Congress funds the government to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars to carry out those mass deportations.”

Never one to let practical matters stand in his way, the profile of Trump’s incoming team reveals a certain determination on the part of the billionaire.

Just days after his stunning November 5 victory, a new “border czar” was among the very first officials he named.

Tom Homan was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first term. He oversaw a controversial — and short-lived — policy that separated parents and children at the border.

The former police officer headed enforcement and removal operations at ICE under president Barack Obama.

Some Republicans initially viewed Homan as a bit soft, but Trump, after becoming president in 2017, lavished praise on him, saying approvingly that he “looks very nasty; he looks very mean.”

Homan contributed to the conservative Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for government overhaul, and he advocated in a speech this year for a sweeping deportation program.

“No one’s off the table in the next administration,” he told the National Conservatism Conference.

“If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”