Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) emphasized on Sunday that President-elect Trump will only resort to military assets for his mass deportation plan as an “extreme last resort.” During an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” host Martha Raddatz asked Donalds to elaborate on how Trump intends to implement the mass deportation strategy, which includes the potential use of military resources.
Reiterating the Trump administration’s commitment, Donalds stated that the primary focus would be on deporting criminal individuals residing illegally in the U.S., downplaying the necessity for military involvement. “Well, first and foremost, we’ve been very clear throughout the entire campaign that the first order of business is going to be removing, repatriating these criminal illegal aliens almost to the tune of a million of them back to their home countries. That is step one,” he explained.
Trump’s deportation strategy avoids military presence in civilian neighborhoods
He further clarified, “When you’re talking about military assets being used, that’s only in an extreme last resort. There are more than 6,000 officers … who have dedicated their lives to having to remove illegal aliens from our country, people who already have a legal deportation order but they haven’t — it hasn’t been effectuated by Joe Biden.”
Donalds elaborated that the repatriation process will primarily involve personnel from ICE and other divisions of the Department of Homeland Security. “What Donald Trump is going to do is repatriate those people using those personnel at ICE and other parts of the Department of Homeland Security to remove them. I think if you’re going to use military assets, that’s in the last resorts but that’s only for logistical purposes,” he added.
He also reassured the public regarding the presence of military forces in civilian areas. “So I think that what we have to be very careful of is not to try to throw out this idea that you’re going to have troops in the United States going door to door. That is not going to happen,” he stated.
