Analysis: Government lacks the resources to fulfill Trump's 'mass deportation' promise

President-elect Trump has promised a mass deportation effort to remove the 11 million or so unauthorized migrants who live in the U.S. The American Immigration Council estimates that as of 2020, that's about 400,000 people in Georgia. For more on what it would take for the next president to carry out his plan, GPB's Peter Biello spoke with attorney Charles Kuck. He's with the Atlanta-based firm Kuck Baxter, which specializes in immigration law.

Peter Biello: So rounding up and deporting 11 million people sounds like an effort that's going to require a lot of government resources. Does the government have the resources to do this?

Charles Kuck: No, they definitely don't. It costs about $11,000 to detain and deport an undocumented immigrant, plus another $2,000 ... to transport them out of the United States. Those numbers are from 2016. ICE is not funded at that level. And the estimates that we've seen most recently, we're talking about several hundred billion dollars to deport this many people together with the fact that we simply not only have don't have the money, but we don't have the actual resources to make that happen in any time frame that reflects reality.

Peter Biello: Could the federal government sort of force state resources to lend a hand in this effort?

Charles Kuck: No. But what we have seen is that the president in the past, President Trump, took money from the from a defense budget to carry out some of his immigration work. So I can see some robbing of Peter to pay Paul. But it's still not within the context of the current finances of the government or their physical ability to do this at this time.

Peter Biello: And we're talking about a period of four years, right? Not a period of one year.

Charles Kuck: The most — Tom Homan, who was the head of ICE under Trump, talked about this just a couple of days ago. They're talking about maybe, maximum, a million people a year, maybe. Keep in mind, Obama deported about 700,000 or 800,000 a year in his first four years of being president. So it's not impossible to do this. But Obama did that with a much smaller, almost nonexistent backlog. Keep in mind, almost any immigrant who's been here for more than two years must go through the immigration court system. The immigration court system currently has 3.5 million cases already in their backlog with about 675 judges. But again, it's about reality versus wishes at this point.

Peter Biello: I suspect a lot of people are worried about the Trump administration coming in and simply not caring that there is due process involved. And they could deport people, put them on planes and send them to other countries and then beg for forgiveness, so to speak, later. Is that a possibility that you're concerned about?

Charles Kuck: No, I'm not really concerned about that, because the judiciary still exists in United States, and at least so far, the Trump administration has promised to follow the law as it exists. So if if that is happening for somebody who is eligible for some relief, a quick habeas in federal court will stop that plane from taking off. But — so I'm not — I'm not truly worried about mass detention, walking into a neighborhood and arresting 500 people. And it's quite clear that they're really going to focus first on the people that they consider most dangerous and, I think, easiest to deport.

Peter Biello: Meaning people who already have pending criminal charges?

Charles Kuck: Exactly. Although there's not that many of those people, but also people that have asylum cases that have been resolved. There's actually over a million people who have final removal orders; already been through the process. It's a question of tracking them down and carrying out the process. So those will be easy. Also, [for] the individuals who have been paroled into the United States under the Biden administration, under the Cuban, Nicaraguan, Haitian and Venezuelans, it's a simple act of canceling the parole. They know where these people live. They track them. So it would be very easy for them to actually just round them up like in a butterfly net. They're not entitled to due process for the most part because many have not applied for asylum or are not eligible for asylum. They're just here as parolees. There is a lot of people they can initially round up.

Peter Biello: What about work visas? The Trump administration has expressed interest in limiting legal immigration to the United States. What changes do you see happening to the work visa program?

Charles Kuck: I'm glad you brought that up. There's going to be a lot of restrictions put onto the different work visa programs that exist in the United States. Principal among them, the H-1B program. The Trump administration previously tried to make a number of changes to the program, but had waited too long into their administration to make that happen. And all those changes were tossed aside. But we think we'll see a lot of these new regulations probably promulgated early in the Trump administration as it pertains to the H-1B work visa, including things like reviewing cases for people who maybe aren't working where they're supposed to be, increasing the filing fees, limiting visas to the most highest-paid individuals. So, right now, there's about 700,000 people on H-1B visas. Virtually every one of those is at risk of being re-adjudicated and being denied their status and having to leave the United States.

Peter Biello: What about DACA recipients?

Charles Kuck: Well, that is truly the most heartbreaking part of all this. There is no doubt in my mind that early in February of 2025, we'll see a federal register notice withdrawing the DACA program. So it won't matter what the courts have done on that. This time — Now, keep in mind, last time Trump did do this, but they did it wrong. And so they got sued and they were stopped from terminating the program. They have learned their lesson. They were amateurs before. They are not amateurs anymore. So I do expect the DACA program to come to a screeching halt for renewals and those with DACA as they gradually expire will simply become undocumented or be put into removal proceedings. The good news, however, is that about a half a million original DACA recipients have already obtained their green cards through various processes, mostly including marriage, and there are many more that could do so before this termination happens.

Peter Biello: We talked earlier about, at best, the Trump administration, given the resources that it will have, deporting a million people a year for the next four years. I know you're not an economist, but what do you think that will do to our society, the function of society as far as the work those people do and the consumption that they do?

Charles Kuck: Well, the good news, I don't have to be an economist to know this, because economists actually have written on this already. You're talking about the beginning of a massive recession. You're taking out of the economy 4 million workers. Now, keep in mind, these immigrants aren't sitting at home eating bonbons and sucking off government benefits. They're actually working. They have jobs. I think the Chamber of Commerce will start to freak out about the middle of Year 1 when all their members start complaining that they've lost their hotel workers, their field workers, their restaurant workers, manufacturing workers, and there is literally nobody to take those jobs. So we will we will absolutely have a recession if that happens. And I don't see a way out of it because we're simply not birthing enough babies to replace the jobs we are creating in the United States.

Peter Biello: So what advice would you have for those at risk of deportation under Trump Part 2?

Charles Kuck: One: Prepare. If you've been in the United States longer than two years, you must prove that if you're stopped by an immigration officer. So you need to carry with you at all times evidence that you've been in the United States for longer than two years. If you've been here for 10 years, you have a right to fight that in court, your deportation. So you need to gather the evidence, now that you've been in the United States for 10 years, that you're a person of good moral character, that you have children in the United States and for purposes of bond from detention, because immigrants who are detained or not convicted of crimes are eligible for a bond in immigration court. You should gather and have those documents ready and have money saved so you can pay your bond. Immigration court is pure cash bonds. It's not like criminal court where you can pay 10%. So you need to save four, five, six, eight, $12,000 just in your back pocket so that you can pay that bond if you're detained. Those are the minimum that you need to have ready.