Aides to Donald Trump working to transform US immigration policy should he return to power are pursuing goals including “the largest mass deportation in US history” while “part-inspired” by the UK government’s deal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Conservative UK government reached an agreement with the African country in 2022. Since then, however, the Rwanda policy has proved politically controversial, legally vulnerable, highly inefficient and vastly expensive.
“The plan hasn’t gone into effect yet because of legal challenges,” the Journal said, pointing to the likely fate of many Trump policies should he win re-election.
Nonetheless, the paper reported in great detail efforts it said were being carried out by former Trump administration officials, Trump supporters and “conservative immigration wonks”.
According to the paper, the group’s aims include expediting migrants’ asylum hearings, rescinding deportation protections and forcing other countries to take back people who attempt to enter the US from Mexico.
The group is “writing executive orders, policy memos and other documents in a bid to transform campaign rhetoric into policy” from day one, the Journal said.
“The logistical challenges will be really significant,” a former senior Trump official was quoted as saying.
But Tom Homan, who led US Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump and is seen as a possible appointee in a second administration, said: “I agree with the president: It has to be a historic deportation operation, because we’ve had a historic influx.”
Trump’s rhetoric on immigration remains dark and extreme.
This month, in Michigan, he told rallygoers, “On day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” also claiming millions of migrants were coming from prisons and “insane asylums” to carry out “plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of the American suburbs, cities and towns”.
Trump has frequently compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal serial killer played onscreen by actors including Mads Mikkelsen and Sir Anthony Hopkins.
The Journal report followed a proliferation of pieces on attempts – prominently including Project 2025, a vast plan marshalled by the rightwing Heritage Foundation – to prepare for drastic reforms and political purges.
In a statement, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, senior advisers to Trump in his re-election campaign, said outside groups did not speak for the former president.
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“Some ‘allies’ haven’t gotten the hint, and the media, in their anti-Trump zeal, has been all-too-willing to continue using anonymous sourcing and speculation about a second Trump administration in an effort to prevent a second Trump administration,” they said.
“Unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorised member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official.”
Nonetheless, with Trump leading Joe Biden in key state polls and maintaining a grip on Republican immigration policy, to the extent of directing the dynamiting of a bipartisan, hardline Senate deal, the Journal report made waves.
The paper said the effort was in part based on Biden’s actions on his first day in office in January 2021, when he halted construction of Trump’s border wall, lifted an immigration policy known as Remain in Mexico and ended a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries.
Democrats, meanwhile, continue to try to show voters they are the only party attempting to address problems at the border.
Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said: “The American people want solutions on the border. Donald Trump only wants chaos.”
