8 Million People Could Be Deported Under Trump's Immigration Order
Brian Bennett
February 5, 2017 3:01 pm
WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump ordered broad changes in immigration law enforcement during his first week in office, he stripped away most restrictions on who should be deported, opening the door for roundups and detentions on a scale not seen in nearly a decade.
Six million to 8 million people in the country illegally could be considered priorities for deportation, according to calculations based on interviews with experts who studied the order and two internal documents that signal immigration officials are taking an expansive view of Trump's directive.
Far from targeting only "bad hombres," as Trump has said repeatedly, his new order allows immigration agents to detain nearly anyone they come in contact with who has crossed the border illegally. People could be booked into custody for using food stamps or if their child receives free school lunches.
The deportation targets are a much larger group than those swept up in the travel bans over the past week. Fewer than 1 million people came to the U.S. over the past decade from the seven countries from which most visitors are temporarily blocked.
Deportations of this scale, which has not been publicly totaled before, could have widely felt consequences: Families would be separated. Businesses catering to immigrant customers may be closed. Crops could be left to rot, unpicked, as agricultural and other industries that rely on immigrant workforces face labor shortages. U.S. relations could be strained with countries that stand to receive an influx of deported people, particularly in Latin America. Even the Social Security system, which many immigrants working illegally pay into under fake identification numbers, would take a hit.
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