November 27, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - If elected president, Donald Trump says he would create a "deportation force" to carry out his pledge to expel more than 11 million people from the United States merely because they lack government permission to be here. "We have no choice if we're going to run our country properly and if we're going to be a country," he said during the Republican debate Tuesday night.

Wrong on both counts.

Of course we have a choice. We can choose not to deport the 11 million individuals, the vast majority of whom have never harmed anyone. On the contrary, they've produced and purchased goods and services, not to mention enriching their communities. And the last time I looked, the presence of those peaceful folks has not kept us from being a country. (If not being a country means there's no government to bomb and deport people, then put me down for that.)

Once again, Trump's words bear no resemblance to reality. We should be used to this by now. He's the Bullshitter-in-Chief.

Fortunately, most if not all of his rivals think mass deportation is an insane idea -- not that they're any great shakes on immigration. They all support "securing the border," and I can't recall any of them condemning government sanctions for private enterprises that hire people who lack government papers (E-Verify).

Before continuing with Trump's horrendous proposal, we ought to acknowledge that Ted Cruz also distinguished himself on this issue during the debate when he said, to hearty applause:
 

I understand that when the mainstream media covers immigration, it doesn't often see it as an economic issue. But, I can tell you for millions of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue. And, I will say the politics of it will be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande. Or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press. Then, we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation. [Emphasis added.]

Depending on how the government conducts its apprehensions, it would need to spend $100 billion to $300 billion arresting and removing all undocumented immigrants residing in the country, a process that we estimate would take 20 years. In addition, to prevent any new undocumented immigrants going forward, the government would at a minimum have to maintain current immigration enforcement levels. This results in an additional $315 billion in continuing enforcement costs over that time period.

Does [Trump] understand how his police state would affect the country? Apart from the obvious ways that have been much discussed — breaking up families; a massive disruption for businesses, schools, churches, communities; potentially turning neighbor against neighbor — Trump’s powerful Department of Homeland Security would almost surely end up mistakenly apprehending and detaining U.S. citizens. And probably deporting some of them, too....

It’s hard to imagine that pace allowing for the careful deportation hearings that might significantly lower the rate at which U.S. citizens are incorrectly deported, or allowing for care to be taken not to mistakenly detain U.S. citizens in the first place. It’s much easier to imagine that pace requiring significantly more troubling, blunt methods — predicting a police state is entirely reasonable — that would be much more prone to mistakes. This timetable also drains credibility from Trump’s promise that his deportation force would go about their business humanely.

These deportation procedures, detailed by historian Mae M. Ngai, were not anomalies. They were the essential framework of Operation Wetback -- a concerted immigration law enforcement effort implemented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954 -- and the deportation model that Donald Trump says he intends to follow.