It’s hard to imagine opposing Trump’s proposal. Who would want to help criminals and drug dealers who entered the country illegally stay in the United States? However, there has been much talk that Trump’s deportation plans go far beyond criminals and will eventually result in 10 million, 15 million, or even 20 million people being removed from the country. Part of this is media hysteria. But some of it comes from the loose talk of Trump and his advisers. One Time magazine interview in April, in particular, the interviewer seemed to want Trump to announce that he would round up migrants in detention camps. After more questions, Trump finally said, “I wouldn’t rule anything out.” That, of course, led to speculation that Trump would round up migrants in detention camps.

But Trump’s plan was plain to see for a while. First, the new administration will seek to quickly deport those illegal immigrants who are considered threats to national security. At the same time, it will pursue illegal immigrants with criminal records, either in the US or in another country. And all the while, it will give priority to illegal migrants whose cases have already been adjudicated and ordered removed.

“You focus on threats to public safety and national security threats first because they are the worst of the worst,” Tom Homan, recently named Trump’s “border czar.” said over the weekend on Fox News. “So it will be the worst first. This is how it should be done. We know that a record number of people on the terror watch list have crossed this border. We know that a record number of terrorists have been released into this country. We have already arrested several (planning) attacks. So, look, the president is dead on when he said that criminal threats, national security threats will be a priority. And so it shall be.”

There is a clear guide to do this. Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that as of September 30, 2023, there were 1,292,830 people in the U.S. illegally who had a full legal due process and received a final order of deportation from an immigration judge. The following year, there are estimates that the number rose to somewhere between 1.35 million and 1.6 million.

The vast majority of these people are not in detention. But they have received final deportation orders, so they are subject to removal at any time. Except the Biden administration didn’t remove them. “They were subject to removal proceedings before immigration judges, either because they entered illegally, overstayed, or committed a crime in the United States,” said Andrew Arthur, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service official, attorney Capitol Hill and currently immigration judge. with Center for Immigration Studieswhich favors more rigorous enforcement of immigration law. “Some of them have applied for asylum. Some made no claim. Some of them may have come many years ago and have been in high school for decades.”

Arthur said the US has the resources to eliminate about 400,000 people a year. With more resources and more determination, that number could reach 600,000. So even if the second Trump administration starts quickly, and Trump is determined to do so, it could take years to remove those whose cases have already been decided. In doing so, Trump officials will likely use the same set of priorities — national security threats and criminals first. Then, they could focus on those with the most recent removal orders. As with all those on the list who were ordered deported decades ago but never left, authorities will have to decide what to do on a case-by-case basis.

It would go beyond Trump’s deportations that group of 1.35 million to 1.6 million already ordered removed? Remember that many millions more crossed the US illegally during the Biden years. What to do with them? The vast majority do not have valid asylum claims or any legal right to remain in the US

In an ironic twist, it is possible that the second Trump administration will rely on a document known as Mayorkas memorandum to decide these cases. On September 30, 2021, as the border incursion moved into full gear, Biden’s Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, sent a set of immigration enforcement guidelines to administration immigration officials. In the memo, Mayorkas laid out rules for deporting illegal immigrants.

“We will prioritize apprehension and removal non-citizens who pose a threat to our national security, public safety and border security,” Mayorkas wrote. The first group was terrorists and spies. The second were criminals. And then there was the third group, threats to border security. “A non-citizen who poses a threat to border security is a priority for apprehension and removal,” Mayorkas wrote. “A noncitizen poses a threat to border security if (a) he is apprehended at the border or port of entry while attempting to enter the United States illegally; or (b) are apprehended in the United States after entering illegally after November 1, 2020.”

If Trump had applied the November 1, 2020 standard, Mayorkas standard, on removals, deporting those who crossed illegally most recently into the US, he would have a basis to reverse a significant part of the Biden garden. “Those people are already a priority for removal,” Arthur notes, “so Trump could just say we’re doing what the Biden administration said it was doing.”

If Trump actually does any of this — that is, if it increases deportations with a focus on national security threats, criminals, and recent entrants — it will have a strong deterrent effect on people from foreign nations considering entering the US illegally. It will also motivate recent illegal arrivals in the US. The US, those with the least ties to this country, should go alone.

Trump’s actions, if he takes them, they could certainly be characterized as “mass deportations” because they would involve the removal of approximately 1 million people. It would surely be “the largest deportation of criminals in American history.” On the one hand, it wouldn’t please Trump supporters who want to deport every person in the US illegally. After all, every person who crosses the border illegally has violated US law by entering the country illegally. On the other hand, priority deportations would represent a significant restoration of the rule of law as it applies at the US border, and that would be a very good thing.