Donald Trump named Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has vowed, if he’s elected, to conduct a large-scale deportation operation that some immigration and military experts agree is theoretically possible but also problematic, and could cost tens — even hundreds — of billions a year.

In FY 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducted 170,590 administrative arrests, representing a 19.5% increase over the previous year, and more than any year of the Trump presidency.

Should he win a second term, Trump has promised to exponentially increase this work and suggested deporting all of the estimated 11 million people living in this country without legal immigration status.

His team, at various points, has suggested starting with “criminals,” though they have provided few specifics about who would be prioritized.

One cost estimate: $88B – $315B a year

A new report from the American Immigration Council, an immigration rights research and policy firm, estimates that to deport even one million undocumented immigrants a year would cost over $88 billion dollars annually, for a total of $967.9 billion over more than ten years.

The report acknowledges there are significant cost variables depending on how such an operation would be conducted and says its estimate does not take into account the loss of tax revenue from workers nor the bigger economic loss if people self-deport and American businesses lose labor.

A one-time effort to deport even more people in one year annually could cost around $315 billion, the report estimates, including about $167 billion to detain immigrants en masse.

The two largest costs, according to the group, would be hiring additional personal to carry out deportation raids and constructing and staffing mass detention centers. “There would be no way to accomplish this mission without mass detention as an interim step,” the report reads.

Trump campaign official agree one of the biggest logistical hurdles in any mass deportation effort would be constructing and staffing new detention centers as an interim solution.

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, has repeatedly said that should Trump win the White House, his team plans to construct facilities to hold between 50,000 – 70,000 people. By comparison, the entire U.S. prison and jail population in 2022, comprising every person held in local, county, state, and federal prisons and jails, is currently 1.9 million people.

The American Immigration Council report estimates that to deport one million immigrants a year would require the United States to “build and maintain 24 times more ICE detention capacity than currently exists.”

There are currently an estimated 1.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country who have received “final orders of removal.” Those individuals, in theory, could be removed immediately by ICE agents, but because of limited resources ICE agents have instead focused lately on those people who have recently arrived or who have dangerous crimes

“I think it is possible that they could execute on this. The human resources would be the hardest for them to overcome. They would have to pull ICE agents from the border if they want to go into cities,” Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden’s top migration adviser in the National Security Council, told ABC News.

ICE agents currently help Customs and Border Patrol agents on the border, carrying out expedited deportations of new arrivals who have recently crossed into the country illegally and provide logistical support to the Department of Homeland Security.

A new mandate to round up and deport individuals who have been living in the country for some time could mark a significant change for the law enforcement agency.

The American Immigration Council report estimates that to carry out even one million deportations a year, ICE would need to hire around 30,000 new officers, “instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government,” the report reads.

Trump campaign: Deportation cost less than migrant costs

The Trump campaign has argued the cost of deportation “pales in comparison” to other costs associated housing and providing social services to recent migrants. “Kamala’s border invasion is unsustainable and is already tearing apart the fabric of our society. Mass deportations of illegal immigrant criminals, and restoring an orderly immigration system, are the only way to solve this crisis,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

Trump has promised to mobilize and federalize National Guard units to help with the deportation effort, which would likely be a first for the military.

Under U.S. law, military units are barred from engaging in domestic law enforcement, although Trump has proposed invoking the Insurrection Act, a sweeping law, that could give him broader powers to direct National Guard units as he sees fit.

“We don’t like uniform military in our domestic affairs at all,” William Banks, professor at Syracuse University and Founding Director of the Institute on National Security and Counter Terrorism, told ABC News in a phone interview. “The default is always have the civilians do it. The cops, the state police, the city police, the sheriffs,” he went on.

Using the military for domestic law enforcement would be a fundamental shift, one which Banks argues too few Americans have considered or grappled with.

“It would turn out whole society upside down … all these arguments about him being an autocrat or dictator, it is not a stretch,” he said. For example, uniformed military officers are not trained in law enforcement and if they were asked to conduct civilian arrests there could be significant civil liberties conflicts and violations.

In order to, target and deport immigrants whose have not received “final orders of removal” but whose cases are still pending, Trump has discussed using another rare legal maneuver to himself broad authority to target and detain immigrants without a hearing, specifically invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law last used during World War II to detain Japanese Americans.

Trump would also need other nations to accept deported individuals and allow deportation flights to land back on their soil.

Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden’s top migration adviser on the National Security Council, told ABC News, “Last time the Trump administration did not hesitate to threaten punitive action to countries that didn’t cooperate with them on immigration, but there are some practical issues there in terms of just how many flights a country like Guatemala or Colombia can accept per week.”

There would likely be less tangible and more indirect costs of a mass deportation effort as well. Inevitably there would be ripple effects throughout the economy. In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes, according to the report, and “undocumented immigrants also contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare.”

The human toll

Experts also predict that if a future Trump administration were to follow through with some large, initial and highly visible deportation operation, a significant number of individuals and families would likely choose to self-deport in order to avoid family separations or having to spend time in a military-style detention center.

The authors of the American Immigration Council report argue that the effect of a mass deportation program, as described by Trump and his advisers, would “almost certainly threaten the well-being” of even those immigrants with lawful status in the United States and “even, potentially, naturalized U.S. citizens and their communities.”

“They would live under the shadow of weaponized enforcement as the U.S. went after their neighbors, and, as social scientists found under the Trump administration, would be prone to worry they and their children might be next,” the report says.

In recent interviews and conversations with reporters, Trump’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance has dodged the question of whether a future Trump administration would separate families during a new deportation effort or in detention centers along the border.

“If a guy commits gun violence and is taken to prison, that’s family separation, which, of course, is tragic for the children, but you’ve got to prosecute criminals, and you have to enforce the law,” Vance told reporters in September when visiting the border.

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(WASHINGTON) — Election officials across the country are trying to prepare for what’s out of their control.

When millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, some voters might encounter minor issues including equipment malfunctions or delays. Election officials say that they are prepared for those inevitable challenges, which can come up every election year — but that they struggle with the torrent of misinformation that could follow, where bad actors or election skeptics will sometimes use minor issues to amplify unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.

A preview of that problem played out last week in Kentucky when a voter shared a video online of what officials called a “user error” on an electronic ballot-marking machine that created the false impression the device was switching votes from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. Election officials said the machine produces a paper ballot, which the user then has multiple opportunities to confirm before their vote is scanned — and that the voter who posted the video was able to cast their ballot as intended.

After the machine was taken out of service, Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown shared a video online demonstrating the machine working without issue and said that officials struggled to replicate the error. But the damage was already done, with the original video amassing tens of millions of views on social media, where it was shared by users suggesting that voting machines were being used to rig the election.

Nevertheless, the incident in Kentucky underscores what election experts have been stressing to the voting public: While minor glitches may occur at a few isolated polling places, they are not an indication of widespread voter fraud.

“I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County,” Brown posted. “We strive to have accurate, secure and safe elections that we are proud to provide to our citizens.”

Anticipating similar issues on Election Day, election officials in some counties have prepared pre-written fact checks that can be shared online to quickly counter misinformation before it spreads.

“If there’s an issue that comes up on Election Day, we can kind of say, like, ‘Here’s something that you might have seen, here’s actually what happened,'” said Samantha Shepherd, communications manager for Loudon County, Virginia. “That’s kind of our crisis communication plan for mis- and disinformation.”

Election workers hope that clear communication and transparency can stem the tide of what Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, describes as a “fire hose of disinformation” targeting the integrity of the country’s elections.

“Election officials have never been better prepared to deliver safe and secure and free and fair elections for the people,” Easterly said.

That security stems in part from built-in redundancies that allow officials to securely administer the election, even if equipment fails.

“We have paper backup nearly in every jurisdiction across this country, so that we can rely on that if technology is not there to assist us,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Across the country, 97% of voters will cast ballots in jurisdictions that provide verifiable paper backups, Easterly said.

That means if an electronic voting machine breaks down, election workers can return to traditional paper ballots, said Derek Tisler, an attorney with the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit think tank. In a case like the ballot-marking device that was at issue in Kentucky, the paper ballot showed that the voter’s selection had to be corrected, which it was before their vote was actually cast.

“The common theme that we see with so many of the backups, specifically for technical issues, is that there is usually a very simple, paper-based system that can keep things moving smoothly until the issue can be resolved,” said Tisler.

Tisler also said there’s increased transparency in the aftermath of the 2020 election, with poll watchers able to oversee most elements of election administration, and election workers often operating in two-person or bipartisan teams.

“We are wide open. You can come in anytime,” said Aaron Ammons, the clerk in Champaign County, Illinois. “The public can come and see the process from A to Z, and I strongly encourage them.”

The decentralized nature of the country’s election infrastructure also protects against widespread fraud, according to experts. Instead of operating under a single nationwide system, elections are generally run on the county level, with some states like Wisconsin and Michigan running elections through thousands of municipal clerks — an arrangement that helps prevent bad actors from causing large-scale systemic problems.

“We have a large and decentralized election system that’s run in counties and cities across the country, and it’s natural that there’ll be some bumps in the road,” said Brian Hinkle, senior voting policy researcher at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. “But in the end, these election officials take great pains to make sure the process is accurate, safe and secure.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday was divided over whether the Food and Drug Administration had unlawfully rejected millions of flavored e-cigarettes for approved sale in U.S. over concerns about nicotine addiction among young people.

During oral arguments in a case that could have a significant impact on public health, the justices grappled with tobacco industry claims that the government had given unclear and shifting requirements for new product applications and failed to provide proper notice to the companies.

“FDA switched its position on what studies were required” to show that the products have benefits to existing smokers that offset risks to youth, argued Eric Heyer, the attorney representing vape manufacturers Triton Distribution and Vapetasia, which are seeking a green light to market e-liquids such as “Jimmy the Juice Man Peachy Strawberry” and “Iced Pineapple Express.”

Federal law requires sellers of new nicotine products to provide regulators with scientific evidence to show that the products would promote public health, but the statute does not spell out specifically what evidence is necessary and sufficient. The FDA’s guidance on how to meet that requirement is at the center of the case.

“Their argument is that the guidance were actually a moving target, that either they weren’t clear or you changed the guidance as time went on,” said Justice Clarence Thomas, who appeared sympathetic to vape manufacturers.

“That is their argument,” replied Biden administration lawyer Curtis Gannon, representing the FDA, adding, “But I think that the key point is that they knew from the statute that they needed to be making this comparison about what the benefits were with respect to existing smokers and weighing that against the potential costs with respect to nonsmokers and attracting youth.”

Justice Neil Gorusch suggested that the companies might not have been given “fair notice” of how they could comply with the law. “Wouldn’t due process require an opportunity for notice and a hearing?” he asked Gannon.

E-cigarettes and vapes, which deliver nicotine without some of the harmful effects of smoking, have been booming in popularity. Kid-friendly flavors, such as fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts, are not approved by the FDA and are on the market illegally.

While vaping among youth is declining, more than 1.6 million children use the products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 90% of them consume illicit flavored brands.

Manufacturers have acknowledged that their products may appeal to youth but insist that a “growing body of scientific evidence” shows that “flavors are crucial to getting adult smokers to make the switch and stay away from combustible cigarettes.”

A federal appeals court sided with the companies last year, saying the agency had acted arbitrarily. If the Supreme Court upholds that ruling, it could clear the way for broader marketing and sale of flavored nicotine products.

The Court’s three liberal justices all seemed to share the government’s view that FDA did not illegally move the goal posts during the process and that the companies simply lacked the evidence to win approval.

Since 2009, when Congress passed legislation aimed at curbing tobacco use among young people, the government has almost universally denied tobacco company requests to sell flavored nicotine e-liquids, citing risks of addiction among minors.

The FDA said the two companies in this case provided insufficient evidence that the benefits of their flavored e-products in helping tobacco smokers quit exceed the dangers of hooking children.

“I’m so totally confused,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Heyer. “What [FDA] said is what you provided wasn’t sufficient.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was “baffled” by Heyer’s argument because the FDA had explicitly articulated its standard.

“I guess I’m not really seeing what the surprise is here, or what the change is here,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “There’s just not a lot of mystery here about what FDA was doing. You might disagree with that, because you think that, in fact, the world of 40-year-olds really wants to do blueberry vaping, but you can’t say that FDA hasn’t told you all about what it’s thinking in this respect.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who could be a critical vote in the case, signaled sympathy to the industry’s complaint about discretionary government regulation but suggested he wasn’t convinced FDA had acted unreasonably.

“If the agency says [your claims of benefits to adult smokers] that doesn’t outweigh the harm to youth, we’ve reviewed everything, we’re aware of everything, of course they’re aware of everything that’s out there, that’s kind of the end of it, isn’t it?” Kavanaugh asked.

Even if they lose the case, several justices noted, the vape manufacturers could reapply for approval with the FDA in a new application.

While the first Trump administration had taken a hard line against the marketing and sale of sweet and candy-flavored vapes, president-elect Donald Trump said during the campaign that he wants to “save” flavored vapes.

“We don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like,” said Heyer. But, he added, that his clients “can’t afford to wait that out.”

Nearly a quarter of high school students who use e-cigarettes consume illicit menthol-flavored varieties, according to the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

Josie Shapiro, the 2024 national youth ambassador for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids who testified before Congress on the dangers of nicotine addiction, said illicit flavored vapes hooked her at age 14.

“I think that by marketing any sort of flavored product as bubble gum or any of the genres of candy, it’s going to catch the eyes of children,” Shapiro said. “I’m still addicted, and I’m still trying to fight my addiction. Honestly, the FDA needs to regulate all flavored tobaccos to flavor ‘tobacco’ products and get them off the market.”

Public health experts have credited the FDA’s restrictions on flavored nicotine products with helping to drive down the number of teenagers who vape gradually from an “epidemic” level just five years ago.

The case, Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments, LLC, will be decided before the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June 2025.

ABC News’ Patty See contributed to this report.

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