America's Talking - In Less Than a Week, Ice Agents Arrest Thousands Nationwide

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. President Donald Trump's border security plan, including deporting foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally, prioritizing violent criminal offenders. Borders are Tom Homan and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are reporting more than a thousand of these offenders every single day. joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, Trump, Homan and company aren't wasting time fulfilling the president's campaign promises. What do you think? Yeah, they're not at all. I mean, we've seen a very aggressive President Trump.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Tom Homan has, from the start been very clear about his mandate to carry out the largest mass deportation in American history. So we are seeing the effects of that. There have been thousands and thousands of arrests all around the country of, of starting with violent criminals. As you said, you know, we've talked on this podcast and written at the center square.com about how under the Biden administration, ICE, immigration, and custom enforcement have really had their hand, have been handcuffed. And the deportations under Biden, like the people they're allowed to deport,

Starting point is 00:01:13 it's really been, it's, they've been handcuffed, they've been restricted by Biden and told to not be as aggressive, to only go after certain people. And so now the Trump's in office, he's saying, you know, he's giving. giving them full reign, basically, to do what they were doing. Just a few years ago, I mean, Democrats before, you know, Biden deported plenty of people. And, you know, Biden did deport people, but vice really was handcuffed to what they were doing. And so now we're seeing these raids go on. There's the way from what Holman has said, you know, they're going after violent criminals.

Starting point is 00:01:44 But if they go after a violent criminal and he is with, you know, he's in the car with another illegal immigrant who's not a violent criminal. they're also deporting the illegal immigrant who was in the car with a guy because Trump administration is also making the point that all illegal immigrants are criminals because to cross the southern border is a crime. So that's what they're, you know, that's an important language difference that, you know, maybe other reporters aren't using, but the Trump administration is. But anyway, all that to say, they're prioritizing these with long criminal records, uh, the illegal immigrants now, but plenty of other people are getting caught up in that. And Holman has been clear that they're going to move. on to focusing on deporting all illegal immigrants, not just these kind of violent criminal record guys that have become the center of everything right now. One new thing Trump did this week, related to immigration and the border. He ordered the Department of Defense and Department

Starting point is 00:02:38 of Homeland Security to prepare 30,000 beds at the infamous Guantanamo Bay Detention Center to be prepared to house many of the worst defenders who are in the country illegally. Tell us about that, Casey. Yeah, I mean, this was a big development this week. Basically, Trump announced that they were going to use Guantanamo Bay. And really, this is because there's been such a, there's a logistical issue with housing all these migrants temporarily while you get them on the right flights to the right countries, do the paperwork, speak with the countries, you know, verify things, separate

Starting point is 00:03:15 them. you have to hold them somewhere while you coordinate with the country and coordinate the flight. Now, they're using military planes to make these flights. And so, you know, we've seen some resistance from some countries, but there's just a lot of logistical things that go on behind the scenes, as you can imagine. And so they need some holding areas for migrants while they sort out all these details. And Trump said that Guantanamo Bay would be used for, quote unquote, the worst illegal immigrants, you know, the ones who are threatening people is what he said. I'll read his quote. He said, some of them are so bad. We don't even trust the countries to hold them because we don't want them coming back. So we're going to send them out to Guantanamo. This will double our capacity immediately. And it's a tough place to get out of, of course, in Trump fashion. So it seems that some people are not even going to be deported because they have such terrible records. Of course, Guantanamo Bay is famous for holding people like terrorists, you know, and it's based out of Cuba. So this is, you know, in the one hand, this is just a small kind of procedural change. opening up a new detention facility to handle the large influx of deportations, and then some of

Starting point is 00:04:22 the worst criminals are going to be kept there. But it's also a symbol because Guantanamo Bay is a notorious holding facility. It's a symbol of how serious Trump is taking this. It's a symbol of kind of the severity of the punishment for some of these violent criminals and how violent and dangerous. Some of them are, some of them are connected to terrorist groups. Some of them are, I mean, quite literally demonic, you know, murderers, Satan worshiping cult gangs. I mean, there are some pretty incredibly bad guys. And those are the kind of thing going to Guantanamo. It'll be interesting to see how the PR battle shakes out for Trump once it shifts away from violent criminals and to other more run-of-the-mill legal immigrants. But for now, I think he has a lot of wind in his

Starting point is 00:05:06 sale, and a lot of people, a lot of Americans do want anyone with a criminal record out of this country. Another development related to the border, Casey relates to sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, for Democratic governors, Democratic mayors in large cities have criticized Trump's deportation plan. Well, James Comer, chairman of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched an investigation into these sanctuary jurisdictions to determine if they're, they're breaking the law in any way. He summoned the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver, and New York City,

Starting point is 00:05:42 all sanctuary cities who vow not to cooperate with the deportation plan to a congressional hearing on February 11. They're serious about this. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, they definitely are breaking the law, but you could say it's kind of a nonviolent political resistance to the law. Tom Holman, Tom Homan, the borders are that Trump has put in charge. these deportations has made clear that this isn't going to stop the deportations. And in fact, these cities will be hit even worse because if they don't have the cooperation of local law enforcement to help track down the more violent criminals, they're just going to have to take a more sweeping mass deportation approach and to go and round up everyone and deport everyone and try

Starting point is 00:06:27 to find the violent criminals in there. So Tom Homan has said that if they don't have the cooperation of local law enforcement where they can do targeted raids to go after specific people, then they have to just cast a broad net and bring everyone in and then try to find the criminals amongst them. So ironically, it could lead to actually worse outcomes for those cities. Casey, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.

America's Talking - In Less Than a Week, Ice Agents Arrest Thousands Nationwide

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