Americans can expect a deportation operation of 15 million people and the implementation of programs designed to monitor women who violate abortion bans if Donald Trump wins another term in the White House in 2024.
Trump is ready to reshape American politics and it is detailed in interviews with TIME magazine what some of these broad reforms would include.
In a wide-ranging interview at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 12, the former president confirmed that he would use detention camps to house illegal immigrants during deportation efforts.
He also did not rule out deploying the army to stop the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country. As of January 2022, the illegal immigrant population in the United States was estimated to be 11.35 million.
Trump has repeatedly said he would take aggressive steps to address the border issue on the first day of his second term after President Joe Biden reversed nearly all of his policies and plunged the country into a full-blown illegal immigration crisis.
Donald Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with TIME magazine detailing what Americans can expect “if he wins” another term in the White House in 2024.
His proposals would include using local authorities, the National Guard and, if necessary, members of the US military to arrest illegal immigrants and deport them.
TIME National Politics Reporter Eric Cortellessa asked Trump if he would repeal the Posse Comitatus Act, which states that the U.S. military cannot be deployed against civilians.
“Well, these are not civilians,” the former president responded. ‘These are people who are not legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country. An invasion like no country has probably seen before.
“They are arriving by the millions. I think we have 15 million now. And I think you’ll have 20 million when this is over,’ Trump predicted. “And that’s bigger than almost all the states.”
He also said he is not likely to have to house these migrants in detention camps because he plans to quickly deport them, but did not rule out building more detention centers if necessary during the operation.
“No, I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Trump said. ‘But there wouldn’t be much need for them (detention camps), due to the fact that we are going to remove them. “We are going to bring them back from where they came from.”
Since Biden took office, the United States has experienced a record number of illegal border crossings.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has detained more than 7.6 million migrants illegally crossing the southern border, most of whom are traveling from countries in Central and South America in an effort to request asylum in the USA
Trump took a rather tepid position on abortion earlier this month when he released a video stating that he does not support a ban at the federal level because the issue should be decided by individual states.
But he did not say in any way whether he would veto a bill on a federal abortion ban if it reaches his desk in a second term and said it is highly unlikely that any legislation on the issue will reach his desk. because it would require 60 votes in the Senate.
Trump did not rule out deploying the military to arrest millions of illegal immigrants in a massive deportation effort to expel those living in the United States without documentation.
In January 2022, more than 11 million illegal immigrants were estimated to be living in the United States, Trump predicts, now it has reached 15 million under Biden’s border crisis. Pictured: Asylum seekers line up near the southern border after crossing illegally from Mexico into Texas.
“I’m not going to have to compromise on that because… it’s about states’ rights,” Trump said. ‘You don’t want to go back to the federal government. It was about getting out of the federal government.
Additionally, the former president did not say whether he would oppose states implementing programs to monitor women’s pregnancies in an effort to prosecute mothers if they are found to violate abortion laws.
‘Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they have had abortions after the ban?’ Cortellessa asked the 2024 Republican candidate.
Trump responded: “I think they could do that.” Again, you’ll have to talk to the individual states.’
“Look, (overturning) Roe v. Wade was about bringing it back to the states,” he added. “And that was a legal decision, and possibly in the hearts of some, in the minds of some, moral.”
When Trump was asked if he was “comfortable” prosecuting women for abortions when bans exist in certain states, Trump reiterated that it would not be up to the federal government to weigh in.
“It’s irrelevant whether I feel comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions,” Trump said.
And by the way, Texas is going to be different than Ohio. And Ohio will be different than Michigan.”
The Supreme Court, with a conservative majority of 6 to 3, decided in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization of 2022 that the federal government does not have the constitutional ability to decide whether or not women can terminate their pregnancies. The ruling overturned a nearly 50-year precedent established by Roe v. Wade that established nationwide protections for women’s right to abortion.
Trump admitted that many Republicans don’t know how to properly talk about abortion, but said overturning Roe took “tremendous pressure off everyone” in the federal government to return the issue to the states.
He also said that some states are going further than he personally would like, but that voters in the respective states will decide where to address the issue.
For example, Florida is looking to implement a ban that would make it illegal to have an abortion after six weeks, which is sometimes before a woman can discover she is pregnant.
He also did not raise the possibility that states could implement programs to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute them if they violate abortion bans. Pictured: A pro-life protester in front of the Supreme Court on April 15 advocates for a ban on a pill that terminates pregnancy.
Some call these proposals the “heartbeat law” because it is usually at six weeks that the fetal heartbeat can be detected.
President Biden’s re-election campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, said Trump’s comments to TIME make clear that “if elected, he will sign a national ban on abortion, allow women who have abortions to be prosecuted and punished, allow that the government invades women’s privacy to control their pregnancies and endangers IVF and contraception throughout the country.
“Bottom line: The November election will determine whether women in America have reproductive freedom or whether the new Trump administration will continue its attack to control women’s health care decisions,” she added in a statement about the interview.
Many other topics were discussed in the interview, including the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Trump says his name for those who rioted at the Capitol that day is ‘J-6 patriots.’
He also admitted that he would have a hard time hiring someone for his potential administration who believes President Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.
“I wouldn’t feel good about that, because I think anyone who doesn’t see that that election was stolen, just look at the evidence.” “They are such vast state legislatures that they didn’t go through the legislature,” he said of hiring someone who doesn’t believe in the ‘Big Lie.’
The former president’s interview will appear in TIME’s May 17 issue, which will include a cover with a black-and-white image of Trump sitting on a stool and scowling at the camera with “If he wins” written in white on the cover. .
After speaking at Mar-a-Lago on April 12, Cortellessa followed up with a phone conversation on April 27.