Published 11/19/2024 09:19 | Edited 11/19/2024 09:50
The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, said on Monday (18) that he intends to declare a national emergency, allowing him to use the National Guard to implement his mass deportation plan. In the country, the use of the National Guard and the Armed Forces in the national territory is strictly regulated by the Constitution, federal laws and legal principles.
Trump responded to a post on Truth Social, a social network the billionaire created to compete with pre-Elon Musk Twitter, saying it was “true” about reports that the new administration is preparing an emergency declaration and planning to use the military budget to deport immigrants.
Far-right activist Tom Fitton posted on social media earlier this month that “reports are coming in” that Trump is “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military means to reverse Biden’s invasion [como os republicanos chamam a imigração ilegal] through a mass deportation program.”
“True,” replied the president-elect in the early hours of Monday.
Trump has promised to begin mass deportations as soon as he takes office on January 20.
“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to deport criminals,” he said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in the final days of the campaign. “I will rescue all the cities that have been invaded and conquered, and we will put these cruel and bloodthirsty criminals in prison, and then expel them from our country as quickly as possible.”
The Republican has already appointed a series of hard-line immigration political agents to key positions in the White House. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was chosen to be secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, known as DHS for its acronym in English. Former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tom Homan, has been named “border czar.”
During the first Trump administration, Noem was a vocal supporter of hard-border policies. Publicly, he criticized the Biden administration for its handling of immigration, accusing the Democrat of weakening national security.
Noem sent troops from her state’s National Guard to the US southern border in 2021, citing the need to address the “migration crisis”. The move was criticized as funding for the troop deployment came from private donations, raising ethical concerns.
New border czar Homan has already expressed his vision for mass deportations, saying they would first focus on expelling criminals and threats to national security. On Monday, Homan told Fox News that he is heading to Mar-a-Lago, the resort where Trump lives, “to put the finishing touches on the plan.”
Homan reiterated his plan to increase prisons, although he noted he will need more resources to carry it out. “So, I’ve been asked a thousand times, how many people can you remove in the first year? Well, how many agents do I have?” he said. “Can we bring back the agents who are retired? Bring them back and rehire them? How many buses do I have? How much money do I have for planes?”
During a rally in Wisconsin in September, Trump said that deporting migrants would be “a bloody story,” rhetoric that drew criticism from immigrant advocates for implying it would be a violent process.
Trump told Time he did not rule out building new detention camps for migrants, but said there would be “not as much need for them” as migrants would be quickly removed.
Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a New York Times interview published in October that deporting 1 million immigrants a year would be “reasonable.”
In 2023, Biden surpassed Trump’s deportation numbers for any year, with a total of 468,000 migrants being deported to their home countries and is on track for even higher numbers this year, Reuters reported.
Source: vermelho.org.br
