Trump confirms plans to use military for mass deportations
President-elect Trump confirmed Monday that he is planning to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations.
Trump made his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants one of the cornerstones of his 2024 campaign, and his team has already begun strategizing how to carry its plan out.
A Truth Social post early Monday is the first time the president-elect has confirmed how his administration will execute the controversial plan.
Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, posted on Truth Social earlier this month that Trump was "prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program." Trump reposted Fitton's comment Monday with the caption, "TRUE!!"
There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Trump's mass deportations are expected to impact roughly 20 million families across the country.
Immigration advocates and lawyers are preparing to counter the plan in court.
The president-elect's team is aiming to craft executive orders that can withstand legal challenges to avoid a similar defeat that befell Trump's Muslim ban in his first term, Politico reported.
Their plans also include ending the parole program for undocumented immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, per Politico.
Trump has also already begun filling out his Cabinet positions with immigration hardliners.
This includes tapping Tom Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to serve as his "border czar."
In addition, Trump nominated South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Trump taps Fox News' Sean Duffy for Transportation Secretary
President-elect Trump nominated former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wisc.) to serve as Secretary of Transportation.
The Fox News contributor, and staunch Trump supporter, left Congress in 2019 and now co-hosts "The Bottom Line" on Fox Business. He's the second Fox News personality nominated for Trump's next White House — and the first former "The Real World" cast member to join the administration.
Duffy, if confirmed, will face a string of air, rail and supply-chain issues, including the effects of climate change on transportation, safety issues at Boeing and threats of labor union strikes.
Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission who wrote a section on the agency for Project 2025, is Trump's pick as chairman of the bipartisan regulatory body.
Carr attended Georgetown University and earned his law degree from the Catholic University of America. He clerked under a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and worked as an attorney for the firm Wiley Rein LLP.
In 2012, he joined the FCC as a staffer. After working as the agency's general counsel, he was nominated to serve as a commissioner by Trump — and was again nominated by President Biden. (Source: Axios)