Trump says he will deport 20 million people if elected

In an exclusive interview with Time magazine, Donald Trump shared his plans for what he hopes to do with America if elected president in 2024. Among the many things Trump discussed was what he plans to do with immigrants to the United States if he is voted into power, and his frankness was chilling.

In his interview with Time's Eric Cortellessa, Donald Trump said he would have no qualms with using the military and building migrant detention camps to "fix" America's migrant problem. 

Trump also repeated one of his most famous false claims, stating that many migrants are former prisoners or have been institutionalized in their home countries, claims that have never been verified. 

Trump told Eric Cortellessa in the Mar-a-Lago interview that once he returns to the White House, he plans to sign orders to revive many of his old policies regarding immigrants from his first term in office.

Policies such as the Remain in Mexico program (it sends non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico until their court dates for months or even years) and Title 42 which permits border officials to deny entry to the US to migrants without the chance to apply for asylum. 

Furthermore, Trump told the Time reporter that he plans to "direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval."

The result of these measures would be the deportation of millions of people. Donald Trump told Time magazine that this time around, as president, he would be targeting somewhere between 15 and 20 million undocumented individuals residing in the United States.

Top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan told Time, “People need to be deported. No one should be off the table.”

Time's Eric Cortellessa wrote that Trump said in order to round up and expel all the undocumented migrants in the United States, he would at first use the police but eventually depend on the National Guard for the operation. 

Trump also told Cortellessa, “If they weren’t able to (in reference to the National Guard), then I’d use [other parts of] the military.” 

Cortelessa then asked Trump if that meant he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians and Trump responded, “Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.” 

Trump continued, "An invasion like probably no country has ever seen before. They're coming in by the millions. I believe we have 15 million now. And I think you'll have 20 million by the time this ends. And that's bigger than almost every state."

It should be noted that Donald Trump's numbers regarding illegal immigrants are not likely accurate. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2021, it was estimated that about 3% of the US population and about 22% of the foreign-born population were undocumented.

Furthermore, Trump told the Time's reporter that if any jurisdiction declined to adopt his anti-migrant policies, he would simply cut off their funding, saying,  “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate and they won’t partake in the riches.”

Trump went on to explain, "I want to give police immunity from prosecution because the liberal groups or the progressive groups, depending on what they want to be called, somewhat liberal, somewhat progressive, but they are—they’re very strong on the fact that they want to leave everybody in, I guess, I don't know."

Trump continued,  "You know, sanctuary cities are failing all over the place. And I really believe that there's a pent-up demand to end sanctuary cities by people that were in favor of sanctuary cities, because it's just not working out for the country."