Former President Donald Trump is planning a widespread expansion of his first administration’s hardline immigration policies if he is elected to a second term in 2024, including rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the US and placing them in detention camps to await deportation, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to CNN.
The plans, first reported by The New York Times, would necessitate building large camps to house migrants waiting for deportation and tapping federal and local law enforcement to assist with large-scale arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country.
Should Congress refuse to fund the operation, Trump could turn to a tactic used in his first term to secure more funding for a border wall — redirecting funds from the Pentagon, the source confirmed.
News of the proposals comes after Trump at a rally in Florida on Wednesday promised to conduct “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” and argued criminals were coming through the US-Mexico border and warned of “young, strong people that had bad intentions.”
And on Saturday, Trump vowed to sign an executive order, on Day 1 of a potential second term, to cease funding the provision of shelter and transportation for undocumented immigrants, saying at a rally in New Hampshire that he would redirect a portion of the savings toward “shelter and treatment for our own homeless veterans.”
He also claimed, without evidence, that President Joe Biden has spent more than $1 million to put undocumented immigrants in “some of the most luxurious hotels in the country.”
Trump has escalated his sharp immigration rhetoric in recent weeks. He has publicly said he wants to revive many of his first-term immigration policies to restrict both legal and illegal immigration — including reinstating and expanding a travel ban on…
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