Republican candidate Donald Trump's mass deportation plan has been one of the hottest talking points during the current election cycle. Although recent analysis has focused on the economic consequences of enacting such a plan, especially for certain industries, there's also a lot of lingering doubts about the logistics behind such a massive undertaking.
For example, there is the question of how many immigrants would be affected by the measure to begin with. The 2022 American Community Survey estimated that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants. However, former president Trump has claimed that this number is currently around 15 to 20 million.
When it comes to undocumented immigrants with criminal records, which Republicans have suggested would be the first ones to be deported, there doesn't seem to be consensus either. A recent letter written by ICE Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner and published by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales revealed that there are currently 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on the agency's non-detained docket (NDD), out of which more than 435,000 are convicted criminals and 226,847 of them have pending criminal charges.
However, on Monday House Speaker Mike Johnson estimated that number to be around 4.5 million, significantly higher than any official federal record to date. "There's about 4.5 million who would be the first priority for that, people who've already committed crimes," Johnson (R-La.) told The New York Post. "They're in the system now [for] shoplifting, or whatever it is ... or [having] done things that are untoward or unlawful."
In fact, the number provided by Johnson even dwarfs the one provided by JD Vance during the vice presidential debate in which he said:
"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."
Johnson's estimate was made in the context of talking about the priorities of Trump's deportation plan, if elected, as Johnson has echoed other GOP voices in stressing that the key demographic would be those who entered the U.S. illegally and have committed crimes.
Elsewhere in the interview, Johnson acknowledged that the deportation process would be lengthy, but stressed that a firm stance from the White House could pressure countries of origin to accept deported individuals. He also noted that the backlog of migrants flagged for removal has surged, with ICE's non-detained docket expected to reach 8 million by the end of the fiscal year, more than doubling since the Biden administration took office.
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