Was Donald Trump severe about his most draconian plans for a second time period? That query shadowed his entire marketing campaign, as commentators questioned whether or not he’d actually try and deport tens of millions of immigrants or impose tariffs above 60 p.c.
If personnel is coverage, because the Ronald Reagan–period maxim states, then the president-elect is lethal severe. Final night time, he introduced that Tom Homan, who was the performing head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the first Trump administration, will function a “border czar.” And CNN studies that Stephen Miller, the main immigration hawk in Trump’s circle, will likely be appointed White Home deputy chief of workers for coverage.
These two strikes, and the truth that they’re among the many first to emerge from the transition, are a sign of Trump’s intent to pursue a really aggressive coverage and assign it a excessive precedence. Miller, who served as a Trump speechwriter and prime adviser beforehand, has been a hard-liner on immigration for his whole profession. He has spent the previous 4 years constructing America First Authorized, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing for conservative causes, and was a contributor to Undertaking 2025, the Heritage Basis blueprint for a second Trump time period.
One 12 months in the past, in an interview with The New York Occasions, Miller laid out a set of plans for immigration. Amongst different issues, he stated, Trump would use the navy to assist implement legal guidelines, utilizing the Revolt Act as license. Trump has additionally promised to make use of a 1798 regulation, the Alien Enemies Act, to facilitate deportation with out due course of beneath the regulation. Miller stated ICE would concentrate on rounding up teams of individuals at job websites and different public locations relatively than in search of to arrest particular people. And he stated the federal authorities would set up detention camps in Texas to carry folks swept up in these raids.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve within the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the huge arsenal of federal powers to implement essentially the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller instructed the Occasions. “The immigration authorized activists gained’t know what’s occurring.”
If Miller is the architect of mass deportation, Homan would be the builder. “There’s no one higher at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump wrote on Reality Social final night time. “Tom Homan will likely be answerable for all Deportation of Unlawful Aliens again to their Nation of Origin.” (The idiosyncratic capitalization is, maybe for sure, his.)
Homan was a profession law-enforcement and border official, however his profile modified beneath Trump as he grew to become a outstanding determine, praising Trump for “taking the shackles off” ICE officers. He grew to become the performing director of ICE at the beginning of Trump’s presidency and remained in that position for a few 12 months and a half, together with through the peak of Trump’s coverage of household separation on the border. However Homan retired across the time Trump was pressured to finish that coverage, pissed off that the Senate wouldn’t verify him. As border czar, he’ll probably not require affirmation—although the brand new Republican Senate majority is anticipated to be extra accommodating to Trump.
Through the presidential marketing campaign, Trump vowed to take away not solely undocumented immigrants but in addition some authorized ones. Solely 40 p.c of respondents in NBC Information’s 2024 exit ballot stated they needed deportation for many undocumented immigrants, however there was no purpose to imagine he was bluffing. Throughout his first administration, Trump tried—persistently, although usually ineffectively—to institute his priorities, particularly on immigration. Trump was usually stymied by courts. By the top of his first time period, nevertheless, he had appointed three pleasant justices to the Supreme Courtroom—which has already granted him huge latitude with a call on presidential immunity—and 231 judges to the decrease courts, which ought to easy his method now.
How Trump will proceed on tariffs is much less instantly clear, partly as a result of he by no means spoke about them with practically the identical specificity, however many companies have already begun taking motion to attempt to insulate themselves from any results.
Practically as telling as whom Trump has appointed is whom he has dominated out. On Saturday, he posted that neither Nikki Haley, the previous United Nations ambassador, nor Mike Pompeo, the previous CIA director and secretary of state, would serve in his administration. Haley criticized Trump after the January 6 riot, whereas Pompeo reportedly mentioned eradicating Trump from workplace by way of the Twenty-Fifth Modification. Each ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Pompeo’s marketing campaign ended rapidly; Haley ended up being Trump’s ultimate rival standing. Each later endorsed him.
Neither of them, particularly Pompeo, is a average—they’re real conservatives. However they’re additionally veteran coverage makers who have been in politics earlier than Trump, and who maintain some allegiance to establishments and authorities processes. Their exclusion is an indication not solely of Trump’s lengthy reminiscence for a grudge however probably additionally of how he’ll search to blast by means of the institutional buildings and processes which have guided previous presidents.
He wasn’t simply providing idle guarantees.
