Dem
47
GOP
53
The Trump administration has directed federal officers to locate immigrants who can be deported quickly, without a court hearing. Anyone who entered illegally and who has not formally completed all the paperwork to apply for asylum can be deported without further ado. Immigrants who came through a proper port of entry but lacked the correct paperwork can also be deported immediately. Donald Trump wants to make a show of deporting large numbers of people quickly to get a "win," and these are the lowest hanging fruit.
Joe Biden created a program in which people from Nicaragua and Venezuela could enter the country via a parole program. If they have not applied for and received some other legal status, deporting them would be a twofer: (1) getting rid of more immigrants and (2) sticking it to Biden. Expedited deportation for immigrants without the correct paperwork is allowed by a 1996 law signed by Bill Clinton.
One defense immigrants could throw up is that they convinced a judge to rule that if returned to their country of origin, they would be persecuted or tortured. Trump wants to make an end run here by deporting them to a different country. For example, a citizen of Guatemala could be deported to El Salvador, which is willing to take anyone (for a modest fee). It even has a prison with a capacity of 40,000 inmates that could handle the incoming stream. The prison is called by its Spanish acronym CECOT. Here are photos of some of the prisoners in it. It is currently only about one-third full.
Incarceration could become a major source of income for the country and Donald Trump just loves to make deals. It could be win-win for El Salvador and Trump, just not for the deportees. In case you haven't heard Woody Guthrie's famous song "Deportee" in a while, here is a link to it. For the record, Guthrie didn't actually write it as a song although he is generally credited for it. He wrote the lyrics as a poem and Martin Hoffman later set it to music. Pete Seeger, a friend of Guthrie, began singing it at concerts, which made it famous. (V)