'Direct challenge': Democratic AGs reveal how they’ll fight Trump’s mass deportations

23 November 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped his former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan to be his new "border czar," and Homan has previously promised to build "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." But Democratic attorneys general have outlined several ways they plan to stymie Trump and Homan's draconian crackdown.

In a recent article for Politico, six attorneys general from blue states hinted at the myriad ways they plan to gum up the works in the federal court system if Trump attempts to follow through on his plan to deport tens of millions of immigrants. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who was a former federal prosecutor, said he has a plan to oppose Trump's stated plans to use emergency powers to deploy the U.S. military as his own deportation force (something that has already attracted public opposition from one Republican senator).

"There are ways to [handle immigration] that are in line with American values and conform to American law. But they don’t seem to be interested in pursuing that," Torrez said. "And that’s where someone like me has an important role to play."

Senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller has alluded to federalizing the National Guard in Republican-controlled states to conduct immigration raids. While the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the U.S. military from conducting civilian law enforcement actions, Miller has pointed to the Insurrection Act, which can take precedent over the Posse Comitatus Act if a president deems it necessary to quell a rebellion.

However, Torrez believes that he will prevail in court if Trump follows through on his promise to deploy the U.S. military, arguing that the law is on his side.

"I don’t think the theories that they have comport with federal laws, so there would be a direct challenge to the legal basis the president would use to deploy the United States military," Torrez said. "Separate and apart from the legal arguments that we would be advancing in court, I think there’s a broader context that most Americans are simply not comfortable and do not support utilizing military assets in that way."

In some instances, undocumented immigrants have married U.S. citizens and have children born on U.S. soil who are citizens by birthright. This would mean that thousands of immigrant families would be separated (which one journalist has said could lead to significant property tax increases to pay for an influx of new children in the foster care system). Homan has said families could be "deported together," though New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said that any effort to include U.S. citizens in Trump's mass deportations would be challenged in court.

“If he’s going to want to achieve that type of scale, the largest deportation in U.S. history, as he says, by definition he’s going to have to target people who are lawfully here and ... go after American citizens,” Platkin told Politico. “And we’re not going to stand for that.”

Trump has also pledged to withhold federal funding from states who have so-called "sanctuary cities" in which local officials promise to not comply with federal immigration crackdowns. But California Attorney General Rob Bonta said if the White House attempts to withhold law enforcement funding, he's ready to take the administration to court.

"We won’t take that lying down, just as we didn’t last time," Ponta said.

Click here to read Politico's full article.

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