Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America, said it will require 12,000 more agents, 4,000 more attorneys, 1,000 more judges, and 1,000 more support staff to deport the 20 million illegal aliens that voters elected President Donald Trump to evict.
Roberts wrote in a Monday op-ed published in Fox News that Trump’s immigration agenda will require funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a “historic scale” and require at least 100,000 detention beds.
“Americans need our leaders to act with the urgency that this moment demands. The safety and security of Americans must be placed first,” Roberts wrote. “The number one priority for Congress right now must be to ensure that every illegal alien who has invaded our country is detained and deported or leaves quickly on their own accord.”
Conducting the “largest deportation operation in American history” will require Congress act swiftly, Roberts wrote. He pointed to the budget reconciliation process as a way to give Trump the resources his administration needs to deliver results.
Roberts advocated a new law requiring money transfer services to demand proof of legal status or face a 50% tax on any outgoing transfers. That money could be used toward paying for the enhanced deportation operations, Roberts said. Another move Congress could do is prevent aliens from accessing America’s welfare benefits.
“Republicans in Congress loved to beat the drum for border security and mass deportation when they were raising money on the campaign trail. Now, it is time for them to follow through and put Americans first,” Roberts wrote.
In a Monday appearance on “The Will Cain Podcast,” Roberts recounted a former U.S. ambassador’s criticism of his using the word “invasion” to describe the border crisis. Daniel Fried, who served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, told Roberts that the term degraded public policy.
“Somehow, we can’t call a spade a spade,” Roberts said. “All of these Americans in these thousands of communities that have been upended by these illegal aliens, some of them committing horrific murders … that somehow, we have to be careful about what we call them and we can’t call it an invasion because it quote-unquote degrades language.”
Roberts said Trump’s genius was calling it like it is.
“Ultimately, what we have arrived at, as Trump said a week ago today … is a revolution of common sense,” Roberts said.