Parting Shots: Biden Admin May Try to Hamper Trump's Deportation

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During the entire 2024 presidential campaign, candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump made no bones about his plans for people illegally in the United States: He pledged to deport them, troublemakers first, and to that end, he has named Tom “The Hammer” Homan as the new “border czar” to replace Kamala Harris, who was more of a “border no-show.”

This plan met with resistance from Democrats, of course. In the latest example of such resistance, the outgoing Biden administration is mulling over throwing some roadblocks at the incoming administration’s deportation plans.

The Biden administration is considering extending protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose status in the United States is set to expire in the first months of the Trump administration, according to U.S. officials and documents viewed by The New York Times.

The move would make it harder, though not impossible, for President-elect Donald J. Trump to deport those people. But it is a sign that the Biden administration could try, in its final weeks, to build some obstacles to what Mr. Trump has promised will be the biggest deportation in U.S. history.

Note, mind you, the weasel language: They are “considering” extending protections. This wouldn’t be the first time the New York Times has floated a trial balloon on behalf of the Democratic Party.

And the thing is, if they do this, it may be harder to counter than we’d like to think.

Mr. Trump tried to get rid of the program during his first term and his advisers have made clear that he will try again as part of a broad crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. If President Biden were to extend T.P.S., even for a relatively narrow group of people, Mr. Trump would either have to wait for the protections to expire, or cut them off early — something that would almost certainly be challenged in court.

Note that illegal immigration was a significant issue in the 2024 elections, more so for Republicans than Democrats, but in the top ten overall. This may be the reason that the Biden administration is just “considering” this move.

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Even so, if you look at this from the Biden administration’s point of view – and by “the Biden administration’s staffers or whoever is really in charge,” as day by day we learn that poor, befuddled old Joe is in worse shape than even we thought – there’s nothing to lose by making the Trump deportation efforts more difficult. The incoming administration, in this effort, will be focusing first on known criminals and gang members, and that’s as it should be; priorities should be on lofting bad actors out of our country, and if anyone’s wondering where to start looking for them, I could point you to a few apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado for a start.

Granted, this program has the potential to affect about a million people, and the odds are that most of them aren’t going to be on that high-priority deportation list. If the Biden administration tries this, there may not be an easy counter, sure; that won’t stop Donald Trump and Tom “The Hammer” Homan from kicking the job off by rounding up known gang members and criminals for their one-way trip back to their countries of origin.