As President Donald Trump fulfills his campaign promise to restore law and order to America’s immigration system, Congress is finally stepping up, but more is needed to fully fund the president’s agenda. While critics protest that the cost of deportation efforts is too high, the response is that, yes, it is expensive, but unlike many other big-ticket programs in Washington, it is money well spent.
Earlier this month, Congress passed a continuing resolution that will allow the federal government to remain open for the next six months, averting an immediate shutdown. This legislation included $10 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while also cutting spending for programs intended to provide more visas and green cards to foreign nationals.
Over the previous four years, the U.S. experienced a historic crisis at its southern border, with more than 10 million illegal aliens entering the country. In its first two months in office, the Trump Administration has brought the flow of illegal aliens at the border to a halt, essentially ending the years-long border crisis. Illegal border crossings last month reached historic lows, down 94 percent from last year. The president has used the tools at his disposal to end the border crisis, and now much of the focus has shifted to interior enforcement.
Throughout his campaign and in the early days of his administration, Trump has vowed enhanced deportation to remove the tens of millions of illegal aliens in the country. In addition to deporting those who entered illegally during the Biden Administration, Trump has attempted to remove anti-American agitators holding visas and green cards, resumed funding for the border wall, issued an executive order terminating birthright citizenship, and cut off the taxpayer-funded gravy train for illegal aliens. In its first two months in office, the administration has accomplished everything that could reasonably be expected of them and then some.
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The $10 billion ICE funding increase is a good start, but more must be done to give the administration the manpower it needs to carry out its deportation plans. Border Czar Tom Homan and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought have asked Congress for $175 billion to help fund security enhancements and interior enforcement. Overall, ICE currently employs roughly 21,000 people, including approximately 6,000 special agents.
With as many as 20-30 million illegal aliens currently residing in the country, ICE will need more manpower to reverse the nation’s illegal immigration crisis. Increased funding will also make it easier for the administration to track down the more than 300,000 migrant children the Biden Administration lost track of, many of whom are likely victims of sex trafficking and other heinous crimes.
For the safety and security of our country, the administration needs more funding to carry out all of its interior enforcement operations. Of course, even without additional funding, the Trump Administration has already made great progress on the immigration issue.
In addition to deporting violent criminals and anti-American agitators, the federal government has been encouraging illegal aliens to self-deport back to their home countries. The Trump Administration has repurposed the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One app—which the Biden Administration used to facilitate the arrival of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens—into a tool that makes it easier for these foreign nationals to make it back to their home country. While it is very difficult to quantify the number of illegal aliens who voluntarily leave the country, there is evidence the White House’s advocacy for self-deportation is making headway. Immigration attorney Rolando Vasquez recently expressed astonishment at the number of self-deportations, according to NewsNation.
“"I'm very surprised with the amount of self-deportations,” Vasquez said. “I knew there would be self-deportations, but not at the level I'm seeing."
The president himself has leaned into this, promoting self-deportations in a recent video released from the Oval Office.
“People in our country illegally can self-deport the easy way or they can get deported the hard way, and that’s not pleasant,” Trump says in the video.
Encouraging self-deportation is a good way to get illegal aliens to leave the country without having to expend the manpower and resources to remove them, and there is evidence this approach is working. Still, the administration will need more funding to fully implement the mandate awarded to them by the American people.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
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