Will President-Elect Trump Deport Me?

On November 13, in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes”, President-Elect Trump said:

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.”

President-Elect Trump is likely to go after criminal immigrants who have committed crimes and violent felonies.

President-Elect Trump has stated that as president he would deport or jail up to 3 million criminal immigrants (To reach that number, Trump would likely have to go beyond violent criminals.) If President-Elect Trump is referring to those who have committed crimes, the number available is only about 820,000, out of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. About 300,000 had felony convictions and an estimated 390,000 were convicted for serious misdemeanors. The rest — about 130,000 — were convicted for low-level offenses, such as immigration, nuisance, or traffic violations.

He has also said he doesn’t believe in catch and release (where immigrants caught in unlawful immigration status are released until a hearing with an immigration judge), so he may use detention centers until their removal proceedings are held, and that could take months or even years. If a criminal immigrant gets put in a detention center, he/she can try to bond out, but detention is very expensive, so the Trump administration will most likely consider alternative methods, such as the ankle bracelet. However, in many cases, criminal immigrants would have to go through immigration courts before they could be deported. Those courts are overwhelmed with huge backlogs, so obtaining deportation orders from judges can take many months — if not many years. Thousands of immigrants are serving jail sentences that under current law cannot be curtailed.

Therefore, President-Elect Trump cannot unilaterally deport criminal immigrants. Criminal immigrants will either be held in detention centers or will have to go through immigration courts, before deportation. However, since the actual number of criminal immigrants with felony convictions is low, President-Elect Trump may seek out immigrants with minor convictions.

It is also important to not that, President-Elect Trump has not discussed the deportation of non-criminal immigrants. However, since the actual number of criminal immigrants with felony convictions is low, President-Elect Trump may seek out immigrants with minor convictions. Unfortunately, there has a been a trend of tougher enforcement for immigrants who committed lower-level crimes decades earlier. More than one in five of those deported for a non-immigration offense were convicted in 2005 or before, half of which were nonviolent offenses.

In short, criminal immigrants should be aware that criminal immigration is a top priority for President-Elect Trump and non-criminal immigrants should be aware of tougher enforcement of the immigration laws.