Was Donald Trump severe about his most draconian plans for a second time period? That query shadowed his entire marketing campaign, as commentators questioned whether or not he’d actually try and deport tens of millions of immigrants or impose tariffs above 60 %.
If personnel is coverage, because the Ronald Reagan–period maxim states, then the president-elect is lethal severe. Final night time, he introduced that Tom Homan, who was the appearing head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the first Trump administration, will function a “border czar.” And CNN reviews that Stephen Miller, the main immigration hawk in Trump’s circle, will probably be appointed White Home deputy chief of workers for coverage.
These two strikes, and the truth that they’re among the many first to emerge from the transition, are a sign of Trump’s intent to pursue a really aggressive coverage and assign it a excessive precedence. Miller, who served as a Trump speechwriter and prime adviser beforehand, has been a hard-liner on immigration for his total profession. He has spent the previous 4 years constructing America First Authorized, a nonprofit dedicated to combating for conservative causes, and was a contributor to Mission 2025, the Heritage Basis blueprint for a second Trump time period.
One yr in the past, in an interview with The New York Instances, Miller laid out a set of plans for immigration. Amongst different issues, he mentioned, Trump would use the navy to assist implement legal guidelines, utilizing the Riot Act as license. Trump has additionally promised to make use of a 1798 legislation, the Alien Enemies Act, to facilitate deportation with out due course of beneath the legislation. Miller mentioned ICE would give attention to rounding up teams of individuals at job websites and different public locations moderately than searching for to arrest particular people. And he mentioned the federal authorities would set up detention camps in Texas to carry folks swept up in these raids.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve within the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the huge arsenal of federal powers to implement probably the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller instructed the Instances. “The immigration authorized activists received’t know what’s occurring.”
If Miller is the architect of mass deportation, Homan would be the builder. “There’s no one higher at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump wrote on Reality Social final night time. “Tom Homan will probably be accountable for all Deportation of Unlawful Aliens again to their Nation of Origin.” (The idiosyncratic capitalization is, maybe for sure, his.)
Homan was a profession law-enforcement and border official, however his profile modified beneath Trump as he turned a distinguished determine, praising Trump for “taking the shackles off” ICE officers. He turned the appearing director of ICE in the beginning of Trump’s presidency and remained in that position for a few yr and a half, together with through the peak of Trump’s coverage of household separation on the border. However Homan retired across the time Trump was compelled to finish that coverage, pissed off that the Senate wouldn’t affirm him. As border czar, he’ll seemingly not require affirmation—although the brand new Republican Senate majority is predicted to be extra accommodating to Trump.
In the course of the presidential marketing campaign, Trump vowed to take away not solely undocumented immigrants but in addition some authorized ones. Solely 40 % of respondents in NBC Information’s 2024 exit ballot mentioned they needed deportation for many undocumented immigrants, however there was no motive to imagine he was bluffing. Throughout his first administration, Trump tried—persistently, although typically ineffectively—to institute his priorities, particularly on immigration. Trump was typically stymied by courts. By the top of his first time period, nevertheless, he had appointed three pleasant justices to the Supreme Court docket—which has already granted him huge latitude with a choice on presidential immunity—and 231 judges to the decrease courts, which ought to clean his approach now.
How Trump will proceed on tariffs is much less instantly clear, partially as a result of he by no means spoke about them with practically the identical specificity, however many companies have already begun taking motion to attempt to insulate themselves from any results.
Almost as telling as whom Trump has appointed is whom he has dominated out. On Saturday, he posted that neither Nikki Haley, the previous United Nations ambassador, nor Mike Pompeo, the previous CIA director and secretary of state, would serve in his administration. Haley criticized Trump after the January 6 riot, whereas Pompeo reportedly mentioned eradicating Trump from workplace through the Twenty-Fifth Modification. Each ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Pompeo’s marketing campaign ended shortly; Haley ended up being Trump’s ultimate rival standing. Each later endorsed him.
Neither of them, particularly Pompeo, is a average—they’re real conservatives. However they’re additionally veteran coverage makers who had been in politics earlier than Trump, and who maintain some allegiance to establishments and authorities processes. Their exclusion is an indication not solely of Trump’s lengthy reminiscence for a grudge however seemingly additionally of how he’ll search to blast by means of the institutional constructions and processes which have guided previous presidents.
He wasn’t simply providing idle guarantees.
