The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Nov. 10 to examine President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Trump on the campaign trail suggested he might utilize the United States military to help deport millions of illegal immigrants.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Ret. Army Major General Randy Manner testified that deploying troops domestically to deal with deportation is beyond the military’s traditional scope. Troops should focus on national security threats such as China, Manner told the panel.
“I am gravely concerned that placing our military in this role could cause significant harm to both the institution of our Armed Forces and to service members themselves,” Manner said.
If the military had to handle mass deportations, it would affect its combat readiness, according to Manner.
Several senators, however, focused on the dangers that illegal immigrants can pose to American citizens.
According to ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), 86 percent of illegal immigrants deported under Trump during his first term had “pending criminal matters.”
Graham used a chart to show that the volume of annual deportations under Trump and former President Barack Obama were the same. The numbers dropped under President Joe Biden, said Graham.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the 2024 presidential election showed that Americans were tired of the “lawlessness at the southern border.”
An estimated 1.3 million to 1.6 million illegal immigrants are under final orders of deportation, Cornyn said.
However, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) stressed that Trump’s plan would be costly, noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents must be hired and that detention centers and jails would have to be built.
Padilla pointed out that illegal immigrants make up 15 percent of construction workers and half of agricultural workers in the United States.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said mass deportations would be a “costly mistake” for American taxpayers.
“When we account for the enormous capital investment, infrastructure, and hiring necessary to arrest, detain, process, and remove one million people per year, we estimate that mass deportations would cost 968 billion dollars in total,” he said.
It would also cause economic chaos, according to Reichlin-Melnick, who also testified that the U.S. population and labor force would shrink.
Foday Turay, an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, testified that his parents fled political violence and they arrived in the United States when he was seven years old. He said many children like him, often referred to as Dreamers, have grown up to become successful individuals and have positively contributed to society.
Senators pointed out that there is a huge difference between Turay and those who commit violent crimes. A compromise, some senators proposed, would be to deport those with criminal histories.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) shared data from ICE showing that, as of July 21, 2024, nearly 650,000 criminal illegal aliens were on ICE’s non-detained docket. According to the figures, roughly 15,000 individuals were convicted of or charged with murder, more than 20,000 of sexual assault, and more than 105,000 of assault.
Cruz acknowledged Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, who also testified during Tuesday’s hearing. Morin called to secure the border after her daughter was killed by an illegal immigrant who had been deported three times. She also reiterated that the man was also accused of killing another person in his home country of El Salvador.
