Texas senators, law enforcement downplay Trump's promise of 'mass deportation'
AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- As former President Donald Trump proposes "the largest deportation program in American history," targeting millions of people in the United States unlawfully, Texas' senators and local law enforcement are tempering that ambitious rhetoric with caveats for practicality and prioritization.
"It's not going to happen. It's just not. It's going to be an empty campaign promise, to be honest with you," Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a vocal Trump ally, told Nexstar. "There's not enough federal agencies in the United States, whether it's Border Patrol (or) Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to go out and simply find the people that are here illegally. Secondly, the amount of expense that will take. It will take a lot of monetary expense to be able to incarcerate the people and then get them returned back to their country."
Cleveland said he has seen an influx of about 1,800 migrant encounters over the last two and a half years -- a small portion of the nearly nine million encountered along the southern border during Biden's term in office, but a real strain on his remote county of just about 700 people.
He says, instead of a sweeping deportation operation attempting to remove millions, a more targeted focus on criminals combined with Trump-era enforcement of existing laws will be more effective.
"We want to focus on those that are breaking the laws, those that are criminal, those that are doing bad things," Cleveland said. "If we just focus on those, that will keep us busy enough... we'll handle the rest either at a later time or whenever our lawmakers get together to decide what they want to do with them."
Texas' senators are also taking Trump's proposal with a grain of salt. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn doesn't take him literally.
"Different people have different ways of expressing themselves. What I interpret him to say is that he wants the law enforced, that people who are not legally present should be repatriated to their home country and removed," Cornyn told Nexstar last week. "I do believe the law ought to be enforced, but I understand the scope of the problem. I assume there will be some prioritization in that process and we'll continue the conversation."
"You obviously prioritize and you start with violent criminals," Sen. Ted Cruz told Nexstar last week. "There are thousands of rapists and child molesters who this administration has apprehended... obviously you prioritize the violent criminals first."
In Austin last month, former President Trump praised former President Dwight D. Eisenhower for having the "record for deportation." Between 1954 and 1955, the Immigration Bureau reported nearly 1.3 million deportations of predominantly Mexican workers - some of them American citizens - using military-style "round-up" tactics.
There are about 1.6 million people in Texas unlawfully today, making up 8% of the workforce.
Trump said he wants to deport more people than Eisenhower.
"I think we'll break that record, not that I want to break it, but we have no choice," Trump said. "We have to get all these criminals, these murderers and drug dealers and everything, we're getting them out."
Whether Trump will have to work out the logistics with Congress and local law enforcement -- Tuesday will tell.