How the Trump administration is building out its immigration enforcement machine
CNN
President Donald Trump has quickly mobilized wide swaths of the federal government to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants in the United States, part of a broader strategy to amass a large enforcement machine.
President Donald Trump has quickly mobilized wide swaths of the federal government to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants in the United States, part of a broader strategy to amass a large enforcement machine. The administration has sent troops to the US-Mexico border, utilized military aircraft to repatriate recent border crossers, and deployed people from multiple federal agencies, including those under the Justice Department, to augment immigration enforcement operations. Those shifts may cause tensions between agencies, as they compete for limited resources and manpower. The administration is also drawing up plans to expand the government’s holding capacity, turning to military bases and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And private contractors are discussing options amongst themselves as they look to ramp up detention capacity. “This gets them over one of the biggest hurdles they have which is resources,” said John Sandweg, former acting ICE director under the Obama administration, noting that getting additional funds from Congress will take time. “By elevating this to a national security priority, tapping into DOD’s abundant resources and DOJ with the federal agents, it’s an immediate surge of resources,” he added. The Trump administration is also expected to tap state and local law enforcement in the weeks to come to assist in their efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants. Combined, the efforts mark a dramatic scaling up of the administration’s enforcement apparatus and reflect Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda.
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