Arizona delegates watch speakers on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024. (Photo by Grey Gartin/Cronkite News)
MILWAUKEE – Former President Donald Trump has vowed to deliver the “largest deportation operation in American history,” envisioning the removal of some 15 million people living in the country illegally.
The latest Republican Party platform echoes that promise, and says the GOP “is committed to sending Illegal Aliens back home and removing those who have violated our Laws.”
It’s a potentially inflammatory plan in a battleground state like Arizona, which shares a 370-mile border with Mexico. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Arizona delegates offered mixed views about mass deportation, though all who discussed the idea with Cronkite News agreed that border security is a top priority.
“If you went to another country illegally, you’d be put in jail,” said Deana Puccinelli, a delegate from Pima County.
Mass deportation might sound “harsh,” she said, but it’s a natural consequence for violating U.S. laws.
“Let’s say an American citizen did a crime, and he’s a father and a husband. He’s got to be separated from his family and go to jail,” she said. “It’s not harsh. (It’s) like if you’re a criminal and you’re convicted.”
The Department of Homeland Security estimated that as of 2022, roughly 290,000 people living in Arizona were in the country illegally.
The Great State of Arizona and the Copper State Delegation proudly cast its 43 votes for @realDonaldTrump to be the 47th President of the United States! 🇺🇸#RNC2024 #RNCinMKE pic.twitter.com/FtDLPFA64x
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) July 15, 2024
Under Trump’s plan, they would be subject to arrest and expulsion, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States or whether they have an American spouse or children.
Tyler Farnsworth, an alternate delegate from Tucson whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico, said mass deportations may not be “practical nor possible.”
And he said, “Not everyone will agree with the right path. … I don’t think it’s an easy situation to solve.”
The mass deportation of people living in the country illegally has mixed public support. An Axios poll taken in March and April found that 51% of voters and 45% of Latino voters support of the idea.
David Lara, an at-large delegate from San Luis – a border city near Yuma in the southwest part of the state – rejected the idea that Trump’s tough policy prescriptions alienate Latino voters.
“They know right and wrong, and it is very different from the illegal immigration from 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago,” he said in an interview on the convention floor at Fiserv Forum. “This is a different type of illegal immigrant. We have a lot more dangerous people coming.”
As of 2022, there were an estimated 11 million “unauthorized” immigrants residing in the U.S., according to DHS data.
Trump has put the number much higher.
“It could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people,” he said in the debate with President Joe Biden last month.
That tops high-end estimates from groups that support restrictions on immigration. In June 2023 the Federation for American Immigration Reform said its best guess was about 16.8 million.
Hispanic voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats in national elections, but the 2022 midterms showed that slipping. Pew Research found that support for Democrats among Hispanic voters fell from 72% in 2018 to 60% in 2022.
Trump and his advisers have not discussed many details of how mass deportation would work.
Experts have called the cost “astronomical,” given the need to find, catch, process and expel millions of people. DHS, which includes the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has nowhere near enough personnel or detention space.
Trump has said that he would enlist the National Guard and local law enforcement to help.
Governors control the National Guard in each state – unless the president has federalized those forces. Of the four states that border Mexico, only Texas has a Republican governor. As for sheriffs offices and police departments, Trump would be unlikely to get much help from counties and cities governed by Democrats.
Though Trump has distanced himself from it, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” – a blueprint for a second term, crafted by some of his own top advisers, calls for allowing ICE officers to detain and remove immigration violators anywhere in the United States.
Trump adviser and campaign surrogate Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE under Trump and a visiting fellow at Heritage, told reporters Monday at a Heritage event that whether the president could execute mass deportations “depends on the resources” available to him.
Another ally, Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who ran for the GOP nomination, defended the idea.
“No migration without consent … and those who enter without consent should be removed,” he said.