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Opinion
The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Efficiency focus can make deportation plan palatable, successful
By Martin Schram
Published: December 2, 2024, 6:01am
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Of all the campaign promises and crisis-fixing commitments President-elect Donald Trump assured us he will quickly fulfill, two pledges are in urgent need of each other. Not starting on Day One — now!
We’re talking about: (1) The first promise Trump made to us — about finally securing our southern border; and (2) the last commitment Trump made to us, just the other day — about finally bringing efficiency to our government.
Trump made his first promise in June 2015 when he glided down his gilded escalator and assured us he will finally stop immigrant criminals and other illegals from overrunning our border with Mexico.
Now he’s promising that on his second presidential Day One, he’ll order the “mass deportation” of illegal, undocumented immigrants. (It may be a hellacious Day One; after all, Trump has variously promised to use the day to get even with all sorts of his persecutors, including his prosecutors).
Just the other day, Trump announced what was seen as a very different and unrelated promise — to create a Department of Government Efficiency. But under the right leadership, Trump’s DOGE may end up being very much related to his border crusade. And it just might save his presidency and legacy.
Trump’s DOGE idea was suggested to him by the guy who will be heading it — his newest best buddy, Elon Musk. Musk’s DOGE co-pilot will be a mere billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy. As Trump’s efficiency tycoons, they may end up saving Trump from himself. If he lets them.
We’ll see. If Trump orders that mass deportation, it could end up careening into something that inhumanely separates families, sends the nation’s debt skyrocketing and ends up in history’s trash pile of ballyhooed government disasters.
Unless Musk and Ramaswamy figure it out first — and save America by convincing Trump to rethink and revamp his mass deportation operation before it is too late. Not because it will be inhumane; just because it will be disastrously inefficient.
The American Immigration Council has just finished an urgent warning call of a report that shows us the paint-by-numbers realities of a U.S. government rush to fulfill Trump’s pledge to deport undocumented immigrants. It is titled: “Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy.”
The AIC report is a mind-numbing compilation of costs and comparisons. Eyes and brain cells glaze over. But Trump’s efficiency tycoons and all the rest of us need to grasp the basics. There are 13 million immigrants in America who are undocumented; a one-time deportation of them will cost at least $315 billion. The numbers are huge because the problem is huge — one in 20 workers in our country are undocumented immigrants, the council reports.
Let Trump start the efficiency by redefining his “mass deportation” down to just the deportation of the worst of the worst — criminal illegals who were convicted of major felonies or are members of organized drug gangs.
And now it is possible for Trump to succeed where President Joe Biden never even attempted to lead — by rethinking the way America makes immigration rulings. He has a chance to hugely reduce — maybe even end — the surges that repeatedly overran our southern border.
Here’s where we can help Musk and Ramaswamy help Trump. In early 2023, I wrote two columns suggesting we discourage future surges by moving our southern border decisions way south. Create a new highly advertised “Rapid Approval” asylum application center at Mexico’s Guatemala border. And announce it is the only place rapid reviews and rulings will happen — within weeks. Not months or years. Asylum-seekers must know it is a waste of time to surge north to the U.S. border.
Show Trump his new policy will be made-for-TV. Picture happy applicants waving approval papers and boarding red-white-and-blue striped buses lettered, “USA Rapid Asylum Express,” for free rides all the way into their new life in the United States. They’ll get help in finding jobs that were long unfilled. They won’t be displacing U.S. citizen workers. The bizarre thing is Trump really can be the one who can make it happen.
We’re left with having to hope that two DOGE tycoons can convince the emperor of Mar-a-Lago, refinancer of Trump Tower, and rent-free occupant of public housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that efficiency can be his presidential legacy.
