LA Times Report: Trump Is Targeting Up To 8 Million People For Deportation
Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration enforcement could put 8 million undocumented workers in the United States at risk of deportation, according to an analysis by the LA Times.
The LA Times noted that Trump’s executive order calls for officials to deport undocumented workers who have been convicted of crimes and those who may have perpetrated “acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense. According to the LA Times, “this extends to the estimated 6 million people thought to have crossed a border “without passing through an official border crossing.”
The LA Times conclusions are based on conversations with immigration experts and internal documents detailing how officials are interpreting Trump’s executive order.
Jessica Vaughn, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies told the Times, “Almost everyone who is here illegally could potentially be considered a priority.”
“We are going back to enforcement chaos — they are going to give lip service to going after criminals, but they really are going to round up everybody they can get their hands on,” immigration lawyer David Leopold told the Times.
The LA Times notes:
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 shuttered. 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.
The Times went on to say:
Trump’s orders instruct officers to deport not only those convicted of crimes, but also those who aren’t charged but are believed to have committed “acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.”
That category applies to the 6 million people believed to have entered the U.S. without passing through an official border crossing. The rest of the 11.1 million people in the country illegally, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, are believed to have entered on a valid visa and stayed past its expiration date.
