Trump's deportation army - by Radley Balko - The Watch

Donald Trump wants to deport 15 million people. He has now made that promise on multiple occasions. He made similar promises during his first term, when he said he’d deport 8 million people. Back then, he was thwarted by institutional resistance, other priorities, incompetence, and his general tendency to get distracted. But this time there’s a plan. It is not a smart plan, nor is it an achievable one. But it is an unapologetically autocratic plan. “You don’t even try something like this unless you aspire to have an authoritarian government behind you,” Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition told me. “You’re talking about soldiers marching through neighborhoods across the country, pulling families out of their homes.” The Atlantic, New York Times and Washington Post have all looked at what Trump and the MAGA coalition have planned for immigration policy should he be elected again. Those stories all got some attention at the time, b

Donald Trump wants to deport 15 million people. He has now made that promise on multiple occasions. He made similar promises during his first term, when he said he’d deport 8 million people. Back then, he was thwarted by institutional resistance, other priorities, incompetence, and his general tendency to get distracted. But this time there’s a plan. It is not a smart plan, nor is it an achievable one. But it is an unapologetically autocratic plan. “You don’t even try something like this unless you aspire to have an authoritarian government behind you,” Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of