What A Day - Can Trump Deport Millions Of People?

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to declare a national emergency – and maybe even use the military – to deport around 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. The consequences could be dire: millions of families separated, livelihoods upended, an even bigger backlog of immigration court cases, and a bill that could top $350 billion. Dara Lind, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, helps us separate facts from fears when it comes to Trump’s plan.And in headlines: Trump announces a flurry of final cabinet picks, Israel’s Defense Forces traded more fire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and the annual U.N. climate summit wraps up with a controversial $300 billion deal.Show Notes:Check out Dara's column – https://tinyurl.com/769bxjxcSubscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, November 25th. I'm Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that will not be paying $500 for a cameo from former Congressman Matt Gaetz. He signed up for the app less than 48 hours after dropping out of the running for attorney general. Proof, yet again, that there are lots of people in Congress who just want to be famous. But there are so, so many other ways to become famous. like winning a lookalike contest or becoming a pop star. Has Matt Gaetz considered becoming a pop star?

On today's show, Trump's weekend administration nomination blitz and the annual UN climate summit leave some countries feeling pretty angry. Let's get into it. President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to declare a national emergency and maybe even use the military to deport around 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., a strategy which the American Immigration Council has said could result in up to 4 million families being separated.

People across the country are already bracing themselves for the potential consequences. Non-profit organizations and lawyers that advocate for immigrants have been overwhelmed with phone calls from people terrified about losing their homes or having their loved ones taken away from them. And thousands of people trying to come to the US are rushing to the border, hoping to get in before Trump takes office in January. Some experts have questioned whether Trump's mass deportation plans are even logistically possible. The US immigration system already has a backlog of almost 4 million cases that would take at least four years to resolve. What's going to happen when it adds millions more? Where will the government put people while they wait for their cases to play out? Who is paying for flights to other

countries? Actually, who is paying for all of this? The bill could top an estimated $350 billion. Stephen Miller, Trump's incoming deputy chief of staff for foreign policy and white nationalist sympathizer, is not too worried about the logistics of all of this because of course he isn't. According to him, they're just going to make it all happen magically via executive order and the stroke of a pen. Here's Miller on Fox News Friday. Ice, Homeland Security investigations. And as I mentioned, the core elements of the Department of Justice are going to launch deportation sweeps to get these criminal gangs out of our country.

So we're going to liberate under President Trump's direction as commander in chief. His plan and his vision, we are going to liberate one town after another. And for that alone, President Trump should be carved in Mount Rushmore for what he's about to do to set American cities free. Some cities in the US, like Los Angeles,

have already declared themselves sanctuary cities in an attempt to resist Trump's deportation plans. Miller told Fox News in that same interview how the administration plans to react. The federal government is the entity that has the final say on immigration enforcement. And if these states continue to shield as they have, people that are raping and murdering children,

every federal tool at President Trump's disposal will be used to bring these cities into compliance. States' rights for some, the boot of the federal government for others. Aside from saying the administration will withhold federal funds, Trump's pick to be his border czar, Tom Homan, has also threatened to send extra federal agents to essentially invade sanctuary cities. Here he is on Newsmax Saturday. What is your message to mayors and governors who were threatening that kind of physical standoff with you?

Game on. That's not a true happens. Game on. If that wasn't clear, he said, let's see what happens. Game on. Not one person, not one, is as tough as these dudes try to be on television. It's simply not possible. To try and figure out how scared we should be, what Trump can and can't do, and how we can fight against these mass deportations, I called up my good friend Dara Lind, who's a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. Dara Lind, welcome to What A Day! Thank you so much.

It's good to be on. You recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times called What Mass Deportation Actually Means. So what does mass deportation actually means. So what does mass deportation actually mean? So because it is not a defined term, it's not like, oh, if you deport two million people, then it counts as mass deportation, but at 1,999,000, et cetera, it doesn't.

Because of that, we need to move beyond thinking about it as something that is going to be accomplished or not, you know, like box check style. Like it's not going to be, it's not, it's not a pass fail situation, right? So the question is to what extent is a second Trump administration going to ramp up the interior immigration enforcement apparatus? How quickly and like how aggressively in terms of deployment of resources and interpretation of existing law. The restrictions that are on them, especially in the immediate term, are much less legal.

Like there are millions of people in the United States who are deportable, and that means that they can be taken into federal custody and the deportation process can be started, then they are logistical. That once you take them into custody, you need someplace to put them while they go through whatever legal proceeding they are entitled to, which for many of them

will include at least one court hearing. And even if you get to the end of that process, you need planes to put them on, seats on those planes, and an agreement from the country that you're trying to land them in to accept them. And those are the kinds of things that, those are potential pinch agreement from the country that you're trying to land them in to accept them. And those are the kinds of things that, you know, those are potential pinch points in the process that are obviously going to prevent them from deporting 11 million people on day one, but that also are like flags for people who are paying attention to this to be looking at because that's

going to be relevant to how many people they can, you know, sweep up in a raid or take into custody or deport in the future. And so for those of us who like have loved ones who are potentially under a deportation dragnet or who are, you know, concerned about making sure that people in our communities are informed, that's a very important consideration. So let's talk about some of those pinch points and let's talk about where you put people. There's a lot of conflicting information between people saying any of this is impossible and then places like Texas essentially saying we will give you hundreds of acres for camps effectively. So how serious is either side? I think that to write off any expansion of deportation

because they don't have the capacity right now is a little short-sighted. What makes mass deportation very interesting in terms of what we heard about it before the election is that as early as November of last year, there were articles about that Stephen Miller and company are putting a lot of thought into how you would do this. They have plans for camps, et cetera. And then Project 2025, which had so much detail about so many other policy areas, had very little on interior enforcement. So we're playing a little bit in the dark

as far as what they already have lined up for the first day, first hundred days, et cetera. So especially if there is going to be an emergency declaration where, under the first Trump administration that was used to dedicate funds that you know that unlocked some pockets of funds that got moved to the border wall if that sort of thing happens that's money that's going to be moved into the quest into like we can spend this for detention that said it isn't free and even if you have the

land the staffing is you know, the federal government does have, you know, standards it has to follow for federal detention centers. So I think that this is, it's something where we're going to see how it pans out. But it's definitely, the more money they throw at it now, the less money they will have available in the future because there really is a big difference between putting up a temporary facility and investing in building a permanent building where you're going to be able to have detention beds. I think another perhaps pinch point of a different nature is public opinion. And one of the challenges that Trump had during the first Trump administration was that he would try some pretty extreme immigration policies like the Muslim ban, get a ton of pushback, and then not be able to actually do all of the things he said he wanted to do.

He will now have the support of the courts and the House and Senate. Will it be different this time? I worry about this a lot. And I worry about it a lot because of family separation, which on the face of it was the most successful case of what stopped Donald Trump was not the courts. It was a sustained public backlash that led them to assume to believe that it wasn't worth it. The problem is that that happened in summer of 2018. And for the next two years of the first Trump administration, I and a lot of other people in the immigration space were trying to raise attention to things like the remain in Mexico policy to the consequences of Title 42. And there wasn't the ability to get even a fraction of the same purchase with public opinion, even among people who were telling pollsters that they valued immigrants. And so I'm a little bit worried that family separation

just fried everybody's circuitry. There were some very interesting features during the first Trump administration about people who had been deported in like the first year, which is when they were doing really stepped up interior enforcement and how, with the exception of like their literal immediate family and loved ones, the rest of our community was like, yep, it sucks, but it had to happen. And so I'm worried, right? I do think that there's

a very important imperative on people who have expressed opposition to, you know, people who voted against Donald Trump, people who do not want this to happen, it really is important to pay attention to what's happening and to be willing to mobilize against it because it's not really that we saw big public outcry that didn't do anything during the first Trump administration, but we did see things where public outcry that we would have expected to materialize didn't happen. So I think on that point, you're talking to an audience

of people who are very informed, very passionate, and prepared to get very mad. So what can people do and how can people, one, how can people learn more about these different policies? Because I think that the degree to which education matters here, it can't be overstated. But also, like, what can people do? How can people get involved in the fight to help immigrants? I definitely don't have all of the answers here. This is something that like everybody in the immigration movement is trying to work out at once. And what the first thing I would say is,

especially if you're in a city or if you're in a community that has a pretty well established immigrant population and like organizations serving them, try to figure out if there is a local rapid response network that you can be a part of, because those are getting spun up. They are often the most important thing when things like raids happen, because for one thing,

they are providing resources and representation to the people who are caught up. And on the other hand, those are also the networks through which information is being shared. So like in 2017, when the first residential raids under Trump happened, a lot of people are calling around in a panic, like, is there an ICE checkpoint

on the way to school? Can I literally drop off my kids today or not? And having accurate information is so essential in letting people who like, when there weren't ICE checkpoints as there weren't in most cities, letting people like go about their lives and not shut down and not put themselves and their children into states of misery and doldrums just

because of misinformation. But I think that there's also a role in making sure that state and local officials are not planning to roll over. It's going to be very interesting to see how much the Trump administration can use the threat of withholding federal funding to force places to accommodate, say, other states National Guard, if they try to go that route, or to force them to maximize information sharing with ICE. And the more that officials can be put, you know, can be held accountable in advance and put on the record in advance saying we're not going to do that, the better off it's going to be. But I do think that getting in the habit now of making sure that you have accurate information, like a mix of immigration-focused reporters, news outlets,

documented in New York is great, Sahan Journal in Minnesota is great, and organizations that are trying to kind of get facts out there, just getting in a habit of having that be part of your media diet is going to be really essential to knowing when and where you need to be mobilized. Dara, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. That was my conversation with Dara Lynch, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now, the news. lines. Donald Trump is has staged the biggest political comeback in history. And I think that we are on the verge of a golden age in

the economy for the next four years where we can have a growth agenda where we deregulate, get energy prices down and get interest rates down. And that will drive growth like we have not seen for years. Scott Bussent, Trump's pick to be the next Treasury Secretary, was on Fox News just after the election.

The billionaire and hedge fund founder was talking about Trump's economic plans. He was one of nearly a dozen picks Trump announced on Friday and Saturday. Trump has now filled out the remainder of his incoming cabinet. Also on Friday, Trump named outgoing Oregon congressman Lori Chavez de Riemer as his labor secretary. She's seen as a moderate Republican and had support from the Teamsters Union. For his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Trump picked former NFL player Scott Turner. He served in the White House during Trump's first administration.

And yes, Trump once again selected a Black American for HUD. Because of course he did. And for everyone who naively thought Trump was serious about distancing himself from Project 2025, well, think again. He tapped Russell Vogt, the co-author of the radical right-wing policy tome, to head the Office of Management and Budget. Vogt held the same job during Trump's first term. Trump also named picks to head the Office of Management and Budget. Vote held the same job during Trump's first term.

Trump also named picks to head the CDC, the FDA, and Presurgent General. On Saturday, he named longtime ally Brooke Rollins as his Secretary of Agriculture. Rollins also served in the first Trump administration, and she currently heads the America First Policy Institute, a think tank tied to Trump that promotes his agenda. All of these picks will require Senate confirmation.

Israel's defense forces traded more fire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah over the weekend as diplomats continued talks for a ceasefire. The IDF says Hezbollah launched 250 missiles into the country on Sunday, wounding at least six people. On Saturday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said that an Israeli airstrike killed at least 29 people and wounded 66 others in Beirut. It was the IDF's fourth attack on the region in less than a week. Israeli military officials say the attack was aimed at one of Hezbollah's leaders, but it failed. The U.S. continues to push its proposal for a ceasefire to avoid an all-out war in the Middle East.

Amos Hochstein, a mediator for the Biden administration, visited both countries last week. He left these talks saying that a deal was, quote, within our grasp. Joseph Barel, the EU's head of foreign policy, traveled to Lebanon to rally support for the proposal from world leaders. He spoke with reporters in Beirut on Sunday. This conflict has already taken an international dimension. An international community cannot stay idle in front of what is happening here.

The agreement would require Israel to withdraw trips from southern Lebanon within 60 days. COP29, the annual UN climate summit, wrapped up late Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan. Leaders announced a major new deal to help developing countries transition to clean energy and offset the cost of damage from extreme weather. It calls for wealthy countries to put up $300 billion a year in financial support by 2035. That's triple the existing commitment.

UN climate change executive secretary Simon Steele said the deal is an insurance policy against a worsening climate. No country got everything they wanted and we leave Baku with a mountain of work to do. The many other issues we need to progress may not be headlines but they are lifelines for billions of people. So this is no time for victory laps. Here's the problem. A lot of people aren't happy about the deal. Climate experts, activists and developing countries say the 10-year deadline to meet the financing goal is too far away and the real need is way bigger, more like a trillion dollars annually.

India's delegation representative, Chandni Raina, called the deal, quote, abysmally poor. It is not something that will enable conducive climate action that is necessary for the survival of our country and for the growth of our people, their livelihoods. And I'm sorry to say that we cannot accept it. Also weighing on this year's climate summit, Trump's re-election. The US is one of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases, and Trump has vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement and expand drilling for fossil fuels. If they waste a ton of taxpayer money, they're going to get fired.

That will immediately improve the situation. Immediately. They waste a ton of taxpayer money, they're going to get fired. That will immediately improve the situation. Immediately. Over the weekend, billionaire Elon Musk used his massive platform of 205 million followers on Twitter to casually dox and harass more people who don't deserve it. This time, random federal workers. Musk is gearing up to co-lead the very real and not fake Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, when Trump assumes office. And one of his big promises for DOJ is that he will get rid of several federal agencies,

simply because there are too many of them? I call this like sort of strangulation by overregulation and this is crazy. Many are concerned that Musk will keep that promise and cut thousands of jobs by overregulation. And this is crazy. Many are concerned that Musk will keep that promise and cut thousands of jobs purely because he doesn't think those jobs matter. And they're right to be worried because he keeps singling out random government employees

by name and saying that their jobs are unnecessary. In one repost, he said, quote, "'Sorry,' insert name, "'gravy train is over.'" It's worth noting that Elon Musk is a government contractor who receives significant federal funding. He also spends lots of time screaming at people on the internet at 4 o'clock in the morning and retweeting memes people make about him. I'd say that is a waste of taxpayer money.

And that's the news. One more thing. At COP29, the U.S. promised to put its money where its metaphorical mouth is on fighting climate change. We joined a bunch of other rich nations to pledge $300 billion annually to the cause. But whether or not the U.S. actually keeps that promise depends on Lee Zeldin, Trump's nominee for head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He is a lot of things, a former New York congressman, a guy who loves Donald Trump, and a 2020 election denier.

But he has very little experience on environmental issues and what experience he does have doesn't fill me with confidence. Because Zeldin isn't interested in how the US could help fight climate change. Actually, it sounds like he has some ideas on how to maybe make climate change way worse. Here's what he said on Fox News after his nomination was announced. We have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to be able to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world, to bring back American jobs to the auto industry and so much more. I don't remember the EPA being a cheerleader for the American auto industry, but hey, maybe I just forgot. Anyway, I wanted to dig into the AI of it all along with how Zeldin and Trump's other nominees will shape US climate policy.

So I called up crooked correspondent and longtime climate reporter Stephanie Eves. Stephanie, welcome to What a Day. Thanks for having me. So I think a lot of listeners might hear, I want to make the US the AI capital of the world and think, what the hell does that have to do with the EPA? Could you help explain what all that means and what this has to do with Zeldin's job? So the relevant thing to know here about artificial intelligence, and I'll be specific that we're not talking about all artificial intelligence, but specifically generative AI, so these models

like ChatGPT that are really doing a lot of work, they're powered by these data centers with millions of servers, and they use a tremendous amount of energy. Models like ChatGPT can use 10 times as much energy as your standard Google search. And the other thing that happens is if you have an aging laptop like I did and you're working on it all day long, it gets pretty hot. These data centers use a lot of water to keep those computers cool. So both of those things kind of intersect with EPA jurisdiction because EPA regulates pollutions from power plants, and they regulate water quality.

And a lot of these data centers are using the same water system that residents in that community are using. So Zeldin and other officials in the Trump administration might be talking about the need to grow artificial intelligence as a way to justify saying, well, we need more energy to power artificial intelligence, so you shouldn't regulate methane from these power plants as much because the fossil fuel industry argues that those regulations make it more costly to do their business or make them less likely to expand.

What else do we know about Zeldin's vision for the EPA beyond his plans for AI? What promises did he make or Trump make on the campaign trail? Their big talking point is deregulation, right? They want to get rid of the Inflation Reduction Act. It's a very similar playbook that we heard from Trump's first term. There are a bunch of climate-oriented rules. They want to get rid of those in favor of helping business. I wanna also talk about two of Trump's other picks

for his administration that will have a huge impact on climate but aren't getting as much press. Let's start with North Dakota governor and failed presidential candidate, Doug Burgum. He's lined up to be Secretary of the Interior. What does that role entail and what does Burgum promise to do if he's confirmed? The Interior Department deserves just as much attention when it comes to climate change. The Department of Interior manages all of the country's public lands. The biggest kind of climate-related question there is about leasing on federal lands.

There's a big expectation that Burgum, which has a lot of oil and natural gas production in his home state of North Dakota, is going to advocate for expanding leasing on federal lands and waters offshore. It includes the Gulf of Mexico and a lot of coastal areas. Leasing doesn't necessarily equal production. A lot of companies will snatch up these leases because they can hold on to them for a long time. But whether or not they develop and produce them is going to depend on whether they think they can make money off of that.

And then there's Chris Wright. Trump tapped him to serve as the country's energy secretary. He's currently the CEO of a giant fracking company, which I think might be kind of telling, but what are his plans for energy? He's made some comments that lead people to associate him with climate denial. And part of his philosophy when it comes to that is supporting all kinds of energy. He will argue there's no such thing as dirty energy and clean energy. All energy has consequences. And the Department of Energy is the agency that supports a lot of the research into these

climate solutions. So we could very well see less of a focus on clean energy or renewable sources like wind and solar in favor of more of a prioritization of fossil fuel related technologies as well as nuclear or technologies like geothermal power. And with all of this in mind, where does AI come in when we look at all three of these people and how they'll impact the global effort to combat climate change? The way I'm kind of reading the situation so far is that AI goes along with this narrative that energy is about supporting business and energy is about the economy way more than it is about climate change.

And energy is a huge driver in the economy, but I think what we can expect to see is that the incoming Trump administration will be focusing more on this energy dominance and supporting artificial intelligence as a big business sector, which could mean allowing more fossil fuel development to continue in order to support that. I think kind of the flip side of this is that there's a lot of potential and work going on to use AI as a tool in addressing climate change as well. It can really speed up research into climate solutions. It has great potential as a tool, but if growing it also adds to the pollution problem and the emissions problem, is the tool really that helpful? Stephanie, thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks, Jane. That was my conversation with Crooked Correspondent Stephanie Ebs. [♪ Music playing. Before we go, we are so grateful for your support of Crooked Media. Thank you for tuning in and being with us through all that the year threw at us. As we look to the new year, we'll keep creating the content you love and building a truly independent, progressive media company. We'll need people like you back in the fight with us, ready to hit the ground running. The best way to support Crooked is by subscribing to Friends of the Pod. And right now we're offering 25% off new

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