One plan that President-Elect, Donald Trump could decide to take up is to use local police to enforce the immigration laws of the US to fulfill his election promise of getting tough on undocumented immigrants. The idea was snapped by a cameraman as part of a list of proposals being carried by Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State when he and other members of Trump’s immigration team attended a meeting on Sunday.
Kobach, who has been instrumental in the crafting of several proposals to crack down on undocumented immigrants, declined to comment on the proposal. The suggested program would allow local sheriff’s deputies and police officers to be trained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in finding and apprehending undocumented immigrants in their communities.
The proposal was created in 1996, by Congress, and used by President George W Bush, but was mostly phased out by his successor. Local officers currently work in jails rather than on the streets. Kobach suggests that the program is increased to as many as 70 countries and cities when Trump takes over the White House at the beginning of next year.
Since his election victory, Trump has pledged to deport around three million undocumented criminal immigrants. Expanding local enforcement operations would be an efficient and relatively inexpensive method of achieving that goal, with federal agents already working at full capacity, according to Center for Immigration Studies policy director, Jessica Vaughan.