The crucial immigration discussion overlooked at the debate

Tuesday’s presidential debate, accurately reflecting voters’ priorities, spent more time on immigration and border security than any other issue except the economy. Unfortunately, post-debate commentators focused on former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats, but the two questions before and after that bizarre exchange were actually much more important and deserve a serious follow-up. 

Immigration and border security highlight the stark differences between the two candidates’ visions for America. Are we a nation of immigrants, or are immigrants a threat? Both sides say enforce the law, then point to different laws. As a senior Department of Homeland Security official for more than a decade in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations, I know the challenges of securing our borders. The stakes could not be higher. 

To ABC’s David Muir’s previous question, Vice President Kamala Harris said she supported the bipartisan Senate compromise on immigration and border security — a bill that would have made wide-ranging policy, operational and resource improvements, as well as a sizable down payment on making the immigration system more just, fair and secure. After disposing of the dog-eating story, Muir asked Trump the next-crucial question: How would he actually carry out his plan to deport 11 million unauthorized migrants? Trump never got close to answering the question.

Given that mass deportation is central to Trump’s approach to immigration and border security, this non-answer needs follow up, because it is highly likely Trump’s plan will end up creating mass detention camps in America, the scale of which was last seen in the U.S. during the shameful 1940s internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry. 

Here’s why: The U.S., like other wealthy countries, has millions more migrants claiming asylum than our immigration system can handle. Federal courts have ruled that the government cannot detain immigrants indefinitely while waiting to see if they will be granted asylum, so many are released into the U.S. But Republicans decry this as “catch and release,” and want it stopped. 

Despite Trump’s claim of “the strongest border in American history,” Trump had two border crises during his term: an intentional policy of child separation in 2018, and a 2019 migrant surge that was solved only after a $4.6 billion supplemental appropriation. Arrivals plummeted during the 2020 pandemic as global travel shut down worldwide — a success that is hardly useful for the future.

The Biden administration reversed many Trump immigration policies but capped the budgets for the three departments that administer the immigration system — DHS, Justice, and Health and Human Services — to little more than Trump-era numbers. The policy changes produced a surge in migrant arrivals, but without additional resources to quickly reject unfounded asylum claims, the case backlog, which had doubled under Trump, doubled again in the first two full years under Biden, leading to more releases but also to more deportations and removals.

Most Americans do not realize that by January 2025, the Biden administration will eventually remove about as many unauthorized migrants from the border as the 1.5 million removed on Trump’s watch.

A Washington “czar” controls policy, resources, operations and messaging across multiple departments. Despite what Trump said, Harris was never truly the border czar. If anything, the Biden administration could be faulted for not having a border “czar” until October 2023, when it sent Congress its first multi-departmental border supplemental appropriation request.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stepped forward in November to negotiate a tough but realistic bipartisan Senate compromise. As Harris said Tuesday night, Trump killed the measure in mid-January. After Biden announced policy changes in June to tighten up asylum procedures and keep families together, unauthorized arrivals fell dramatically. 

Harris’s commitment to passing and signing the bipartisan Senate compromise is thus striking. It means there will be no going back to earlier policies with inadequate resources. She committed to an approach that has (Trump excepted) bipartisan appeal. Republicans get a path to ending catch-and-release and stronger enforcement of immigration laws, while Democrats get a process for asylum seekers that is fast, fair and final. 

In contrast, Trump promises “the largest deportation operation” in history. But there are not enough Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, or beds in immigration detention—especially for families — to make this work. Trump has consistently said, as he agreed on Tuesday night, he would call on the national guard and local law enforcement to help carry out mass arrests. Trump adviser Stephen Miller has said that the military will build detention facilities behind barbed wire to hold all the people. 

Despite what Trump claims, it will be impossible to deport people fast enough. Lower courts will likely block or delay mass deportations until people with legal claims to remain can be heard.

Trump may expect a favorable Supreme Court ruling, but that will take months. Trump could defy lower court orders by offering pardons to officials doing his bidding, as he promised in 2019. Even if Trump uses the military, he will run up against the limited number of aircraft and buses to transfer hundreds of thousands of detainees within the U.S. or to third countries willing to take them. 

The nightmare becomes obvious: A second Trump administration could detain hundreds of thousands of people, but it does not have the ability or the capacity to move them out of the country as fast as ICE, the National Guard and local law enforcement can bring them in. Expect to see families behind barbed wire in overcrowded camps, desperate U.S.-citizen children looking for missing immigrant parents, and U.S. citizens swept up in immigration raids. 

Trump could avoid this by going slow on deportations, increasing the capacity of the system to fairly but swiftly handle migrants’ claims, and work on a bipartisan basis to secure the personnel and money to implement his policy. But listening to Trump on the campaign trail and Tuesday night, this is not his plan. 

Given the undisputed importance of immigration and border security in the 2024 presidential campaign, any interviews or press conferences should press Harris and Trump about their actual plans for the future of immigration and border security. Voters need to understand that Harris and Trump differ more than just in their policy proposals. They have dramatically different visions of what kind of America we will be. 

Thomas Warrick is a former DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he directs the Future of DHS Project and convenes the Experts’ Coalition on Borders, Immigration, and Trade.