Jeh Johnson, a former secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, schooled Donald Trump on Sunday as he shared a lesson on “enforcement” in response to the president-elect’s mass deportation plan.
“So, to this idea of mass deportation, that would be the equivalent if you tried to deport everyone in this country who is undocumented, of the population of two New York Cities, which could not happen in my lifetime,” said Johnson in an appearance on “Meet the Press.”
Johnson reacted to NBC News reporting that Trump plans to roll out his major campaign promise of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants along with other executive actions on “day one” of his presidency.
Johnson, when asked how “complicated” it’d be for the president-elect to roll out the deportation plan, told host Kristen Welker that someone should pass a law banning executive orders on “day one” of a new administration.
“Because the reality is executive orders drafted by transition teams without the input of the affected agency before the cabinet secretary is even confirmed are not great ideas,” Johnson explained.
He then referred to Trump’s travel ban in 2017, a move that barred people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, before pointing fingers at himself.
“I was involved in the transition 16 years ago and Guantanamo Bay is still open,” noted Johnson of Obama issuing an executive order to close the facility in the early days of his first term.
He stressed the need for “enforcement priorities” in an administration regardless of who is president.
“Start with the criminals, start with the national security threats, recent border crossers. Tom Homan knows that. I know he knows that because he used to work for me,” said Johnson of Trump’s pick to be “border czar” in his second term.
He continued, “And I’d rather see ERO go after the criminals versus somebody who’s been in this country 12 years, committed no crimes, has children who are U.S. citizens. And that’s the reality of enforcement and that’s — I’m sure that will be the reality of enforcement even under a President Trump.”
Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, is the division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) responsible for the arrest and removal of undocumented immigrants.
Moments later, Welker told the show’s panel that it could be a “little bit tougher” for Trump to tackle his agenda as Republicans control the House by a “very narrow margin.”
Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch, said this could make it “somewhat tenuous” for Trump.
“But I think that argues in favor of Donald Trump being aggressive on executive actions,” he added.
“He said he ran on tariffs. He ran on mass deportations. We know that these are issues that he cares about viscerally in a way that he doesn’t care about some other issues viscerally. I expect him to go as far as he possibly can in those two areas.”