Over the next four years, those in opposition to President Donald Trump, as he signs hundreds of seemingly unconstitutional or unauthorized executive orders on immigration, will continuously ask the question, “Can he do that?” But the question we should be asking is: “Will anyone stop him?”
The answer to that question is primarily found locally. Trump’s mass deportation effort, set to proceed within days, is a prime example.
Throughout the election campaign, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance centered the largest expulsion of immigrants in U.S. history as their primary policy leading into a second Trump administration.
During the vice presidential debate last year, Vance claimed there are 20 million to 25 million “illegal” immigrants in the country, despite the best estimates putting that figure at 11 million.
Since then, both Trump and Vance have given conflicting figures but have seemed to settle on focusing on immigrants with a criminal record as the first to face deportation. It’s unclear how they’ll define “criminal” in this instance or if they’ll abide by this promise at all.