With just two months left until Inauguration Day, the president-elect continues to either shock or please, depending on one’s perspective. His campaign promises along with a blueprint of a cabinet fashioned in his own image have engendered emotions ranging from hope to hopeless.
But almost nothing has resonated as loudly, as powerfully as his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. That, coupled with the person he’s tabbed to undertake the mission, has given the unmistakable impression that he plans to carry it out.
Donald Trump’s choice for ‘border czar,’ ex-cop and career immigration official, Thomas Hohman, has given no indication that there will be any gray in carrying out the largest deportation plan in U.S. history, even if it means deporting American citizens.
Speaking last summer to the Republican Convention, Hohman, once the head of immigration enforcement during Trump’s first term, was unequivocal. “I got a message to the millions of illegal aliens,” he said. “You better start packing.” And that, he said, includes American citizens born to undocumented parents. “Their parents absolutely entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally. So, he created that crisis.”
“I do think it’s surreal, disheartening in a way and also divorced from reality,” said University of Denver law professor, Elizabeth Jordan, “to think we can rip folks out of communities who’ve been here for decades.”
Targeting immigrants is a long-standing part of the Trump brand. During his first week in office, he ordered a complete ban of Muslims from a number of countries from entering the country. The ban was a total surprise in that it included Muslims then enroute to the U.S. from other countries. Hundreds of lawyers showed up at airports nationwide to provide legal guidance to Muslim travelers.
Expect the same if Trump gives new orders for mass deportation. “We will be prepared,” said Jordan. “I am unwilling to carry this out without a fight.” The D.U. law professor compares Trump’s plan to WWII’s internment of Japanese Americans. Mass deportation, detention camps and family separation, she said, defy the “long tradition of American values…it’s ludicrous on its face.”
While the incoming administration prepares for the largest round up of non-citizens since the Eisenhower-era’s “Operation Wetback,” (official name) a deportation operation that lasted from 1954-1962, Trump’s choices for filling his cabinet drew attention away from it, at least temporarily.
It has been estimated that mass deportation, dubbed “Operation Aurora,” would cost the economy in lost productivity as much as $1.5 trillion. Deportation costs are estimated at $90 billion in year one.
Trump also released names to fill positions for Secretary of State, Attorney General, Directors of National Intelligence, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Interior.
With the exception of Senator Marco Rubio, a three-term senator who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, each of the other selections drew almost immediate attention either for lack of experience or substance. But perhaps none quite commanded the glare of Attorney General nominee, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz, perhaps Trump’s biggest cheerleader and a pariah in his own caucus, has been the center of a House investigation that includes elements of sex trafficking, sexual relations with a minor and illegal drug usage. It should be noted that Gaetz, who resigned his seat just hours before the investigation’s findings were to be made public, has not been criminally charged.
“You can interpret the nominees in two ways,” said Metropolitan State University-Denver political science professor, Rob Preuhs. Either surprising, he said, or people with a “lack of qualifications.” On the other hand, Preuhs said, “they are manifestations of promises the Trump campaign made during the election.”
While Trump’s nominees must still be confirmed by the Senate, Trump has hinted that he would like Congress to adjourn and avoid confirmation hearings altogether. He would then seat them through recess appointments.
But the selections of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy for Health and Human Services are equally as perplexing and, perhaps, say critics—including members of Congress—dangerous.
Gabbard has been labeled “a favorite of the Russians.” Hegseth, a decorated Army veteran, is known for his controversial statements made as a Fox personality, including a defense of Vladimir Putin. Just days after his nomination, Hegseth was identified in a police report involving sexual assault.
But nearly as puzzling as Gaetz nomination is Kennedy’s at HHS, the agency charged with protecting the nation’s health.
Kennedy is an ardent vaccine denier who maintains that vaccines are linked to autism. He has also put forth the belief that HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, began from a vaccine program. During the pandemic, the scion of the Kennedy family argued that Covid was aimed at “Caucasians and Black people,” and that those most immune were Chinese and Jews.
Kennedy has more recently denied making such claims. But the record, which includes both audio and video documentation, says otherwise.
The ‘shock and awe’ appointments, as they have been labeled, said Preuhs, may simply be Trump’s plan for total control. “They’re (nominees) completely aligned with his policy goals,” he said. “The interesting question will be the degree the Republican-controlled Congress acquiesces to the President.”
