The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California mounted a lawsuit to obtain more information about President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants.
On Monday, the ACLU specifically targeted Immigration and Customs Enforcement over how its “ICE Air” program, which removes noncitizens from the United States by air, could be expanded to carry out Trump’s promised deportation effort.
“Little is known about how President-elect Trump would carry out its mass deportation agenda, but what we do know is that this proposal has already instilled fear among immigrant communities,” Eva Bitran, director of immigrants’ rights at ACLU SoCal, said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “The public has a right to know how its taxpayer dollars could be used to fund deportation flights that would tear apart not only families, but also our communities.”
Noting that ICE Air Operations chartered planes to deport more than 140,000 people in 2023, the ACLU SoCal said it filed the lawsuit after ICE failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request the organization submitted earlier this summer.
Trump won the election in part because his message on immigration resonated with voters across the country. He repeatedly promised to carry out the “largest deportation” in U.S. history on the campaign trail, saying he would use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to “dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.”
While Trump has often expressed concern over the “nearly 20 million” illegal immigrants he believes are currently living in the U.S., the president-elect and his allies have emphasized desires to launch deportation efforts by first removing illegal immigrants who committed crimes prior to entering the country or are in U.S. prisons.
“We’ve got 20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country. What do we do with them?” Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said during his debate with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) at the beginning of October. “I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants. About a million of those people have committed some form of crime, in addition to crossing the border illegally.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) echoed Vance’s words during a CNN interview earlier his month, although he suggested the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. who have committed crimes could be much higher than “about a million.”
“I think what the President’s talking about is beginning with the dangerous persons that we know are here. There are criminals, known criminals. There are known terrorists in the country. There are some who have been apprehended, apprehended for committing violent crimes after they come across the border illegally,” Johnson said. “So you start with that number, you got, by some counts, as many as three or 4 million people that fit that category. Begin there and then see how it transpires.”
Deportation efforts are nothing new in the U.S.
Former President Barack Obama deported roughly 3 million people during his administration, earning him the nickname “deporter-in-chief.” Former President George W. Bush removed just over 2 million during his time in office.
However, Trump announced Monday a novel path to deportation when he said he planned to declare a state of emergency at the border and use the military to carry out deportations once he assumes office in January.
In the meantime, led by former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, who was tapped as Trump’s new “border czar” this month, the incoming Republican administration is trying to incentivize people to self-deport.
Homan announced during an appearance on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast earlier this month that illegal immigrants who don’t self-deport will get a “20-year bar, which means you can’t apply for a work visa, a tourist visa.”
“If after due process you’ve been ordered removed by a federal judge, and you don’t leave, you will never qualify for another immigration benefit the rest of your life,” Homan said during another podcast appearance in February.
“If that was actually in effect, a lot of people would leave on their own because many of them have U.S. citizen children,” he added, arguing that they wouldn’t want to rule out being able to return to the U.S.
The ACLU has long been a critic of the country’s top agencies used to target illegal immigration and secure the border.
The progressive organization urged tech companies to boycott ICE and Customs and Border Protection in 2020 and withhold their access “to the sensitive personal information used to destroy communities.”
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The following year, the ACLU called on the Biden administration to shut down ICE detention facilities, saying the agency’s treatment of illegal immigrants was “inhumane.”
“On too many fronts, the Biden administration is failing to deliver on its promises to end the inhumane treatment of immigrants,” the organization wrote.