President-elect Trump's plan to curb illegal immigration will ease the burden on Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement crossing the U.S. southern border, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told Fox News Digital.
Trump won 14 of the 18 counties within 20 miles of the U.S. border, challenging traditional Democratic support in the region. Among Latino voters in these counties, 55% voted for the president-elect. This is a 55% increase from his 2020 numbers.
President Trump has vowed to target noncitizens convicted of crimes and the 1.4 million immigrants who remain in the United States despite formal orders from judges to remove them.
Among his promised policy changes, President Trump declared a national emergency and said he would deploy the U.S. military to assist with deportations. Eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, even though he was blocked from doing so by the Supreme Court during his first term. and abolish birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil.
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Migrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona, Dec. 7, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
President Trump also said he would reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum who arrive at the southern border to remain in Mexico until their U.S. court date. President Biden's administration ended this policy in August 2022.
Judd, a former Border Patrol agent, said reinstating the policy would be a boon for police in border towns.
“When you reduce illegal border crossings and free up local law enforcement in border towns, they are actually free to do their jobs,” Judd said. “Local and state officials will be able to actually do their jobs and protect the public, whereas right now they're taking up a lot of their time dealing with illegal immigration and dealing with drugs. It is.”
Restricting border crossings would also deter cartels, which earn an estimated $13 billion a year smuggling people into the United States, according to one report. New York Times coverage.
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A record number of illegal border crossings have occurred at the border in recent years. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Smuggling chases are on the rise in Cochise County, Arizona, raising concerns that cartels are pushing in more migrants ahead of President Trump's inauguration. news nation.
“They're going to push hard now. The cartels know they have to. They've got a president coming in who has very clearly declared, based on his track record, that he's going to push through this… We will protect our borders,” said Cochise County Sheriff Mark. Dannels told the media. “He will declare a state of emergency.”
Judd worked as a Border Patrol agent from 1997 to 2003 and served as president of the Border Patrol agents' union, NBPC, from 2012 to May of this year. He told Fox News Digital that every president in office had been different, but the Trump administration's border policies were “the most effective.”
“If you look at the Bush administration, there were a huge number of people, but they were the same people over and over again,” Judd recalled. “Then under the Obama administration, there were fewer people to respond to, but they were releasing personnel into the United States at an unprecedented level, which led to the large-scale expansion that we saw in President Obama's second term. It caused a surge.”
“What I would say is that by far the most impressive administration is the Trump administration, and the numbers bear that out. [amount] “The amount of drugs coming into the United States…was much lower,” he continued. “We've seen it on the streets. We've seen it in our cities and communities. But [for] local law enforcement; [there are] Under the Trump administration, there were far fewer drugs on the streets than in the previous administration. ”
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A U.S. Border Patrol agent performs an identification check as a migrant waits to be processed after crossing the border from Mexico in Yuma, Arizona, Dec. 30, 2022. (Qian Weizhong/VCG, via Getty Images)
According to the House Homeland Security Committee, during President Biden's term there have been 8 million encounters with migrants across the United States, 6.7 million of them at the southern border.
The foreign-born population hit a record high in March, largely as a result of the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States over the past several years. The number of foreign-born people living in the United States hit a record high of 51.6 million in March, increasing the percentage of foreign-born people to the total U.S. population to 15.6%. According to research By the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
“If you go back to the Clinton administration, [border crossings were] We are based in San Diego and El Paso. After that, the Bush administration, San Diego, and El Paso were excluded. It was all in the Tucson area. And after the Obama administration, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley came into view. So there's always ebbs and flows,” Judd said. “The difference with this administration is that in the Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations, there were two or three hot spots. [along the border]in the Biden administration…basically across the entire Southwest border. ”
“I've never seen anything like this,” Judd continued. “And we went from two or three hotspots to seven or nine. And it was completely undeniable. [entire] border. There was water everywhere. ”
Local law enforcement agencies across the country also plan to use the 287(g) program to work with ICE officers. The program, added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996 under then-President Clinton, authorized ICE to delegate the ability to state and local law enforcement officers to act as immigration agents. President Trump said he would rely on local law enforcement to carry out the “largest deportation” in U.S. history.
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Migrants board a state-sponsored bus bound for New York outside the nonprofit Mission: Border Hope in Eagle Pass, Texas, on March 11, 2024. (Christopher Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This doesn't stop people on the street saying, 'Show me your documents,'” Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler of Harford County, Maryland, told NBC News.
“If they're taken away, they're being arrested for something that they've committed, something that they've committed against residents of our community. And at that point, they're being arrested for something that they've committed, an act that they've committed against a member of our community. And at that point, they're going to be arrested for something that they've committed, an act that they've committed against a member of our community. You will be held accountable.’ It’s illegal,” Gahler said.
However, it is not yet clear whether local police will receive additional funding to support immigration authorities.
