The repatriation of illegal aliens from the United States to wherever they came from is still ongoing, and it seems to be picking up. In July, reports indicate that Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests broke all previous records: 51,000. Bear in mind that this number also includes people arrested for interfering with ICE operations.
Still, this is what we might call a good start.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 51,000 individuals in July, according to sources familiar with the data.
The arrests are the largest in a single month in DHS history, according to data.
It comes as ICE is ramping up arrests at airports -- with ICE arresting over 30 people at airports in July, agency data shows.
Those being detained in some cases do not have criminal records and have valid work authorization or parole documents, according to one immigration attorney that spoke with ABC News.
Color me skeptical on that last item, especially coming as it does from a nameless immigration attorney.
Here's the interesting part: At least one ally of President Trump on this issue is calling for a change in focus.
Some allies of President Donald Trump say the numbers should be released in full and the enforcement doesn't go far enough.
"The point is the numbers remain wildly disproportionately low to the scale of illegals let in by Biden and the promise of mass deportation," Mike Howell, the president of the Trump-aligned Oversight Project, told ABC News. "The numbers will stay low until worksite enforcement is the central pillar of the strategy. I'm very worried about the amnesty lobby continuing to use inflated deportation statistics to push for a grand compromise and sell out. That's why I'm suing DHS for real data and will keep doing it until I don't have to."
A fair point, indeed. We have seen a few high-profile raids on workplaces, including a couple of operations where the workforce disappeared overnight. To that we can only respond to the business owner who is ticked off about this: to perhaps make some better efforts to make sure your employees are in the country legally.
Here's the nub of the issue: As of this writing, the best estimates of the number of people in this country illegally, after two years of Trump administration efforts, stand somewhere around 14 to 16 million. That's 14 or 16 million too many, and our repatriation and self-deportation efforts aren't going to clean this up in the next two years. And, after that, we have no guarantee what will happen next; it will all be in the hands of whoever sits at the Resolute Desk next. We have no guarantee that it will be JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio or anyone else who would keep up the deportations.
Congress, of course, could address much of this by removing many of the incentives for people to stay here illegally. Freeze them out of the economy. Freeze them out of workplaces. No welfare benefits, no jobs, no nothing. Permit them emergency medicine; we're not savages. But no elective healthcare. Every incentive should be pushing them to do one thing: Go home. That's the only way that this problem will be fixed for good.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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