The Costs to America of Mass Deportation Include Public Safety Priorities

Read New York Post Story HERE on how Stephen Miller’s Mass Deportation Obsessions are “Taking Focus off Criminals”

Access online version of this release HERE

Washington, DC — While leading business and economic voices continue to highlight the economic costs of Stephen Miller’s mass deportation crusade – especially after the recent whiplash experienced by key industries following the Trump administration’s backtracking on the supposed enforcement pause – other “costs” of mass deportation also continue to emerge.

As America’s Voice continues to ask, “At what cost” to America is the Trump administration willing to go to advance its mass deportation agenda, a new story in the generally Trump-friendly New York Post, “Trump admin’s 3,000 ICE arrests per day quota is taking focus off criminals and ‘killing morale’: insiders,” highlights that Stephen Miller’s obsession with arrest quotas and indiscriminately rounding up as many immigrants as possible comes at a direct cost to public safety and targeting public safety threats.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Not content with damaging our communities, families and the economy, the Trump/Miller mass deportation crusade is also threatening our public safety. They are shifting federal law enforcement money and manpower away from combating drug trafficking, terrorism and fraud and toward targeting workers, students and even U.S. citizens. As the New York Post story highlights, grotesque mass deportation quotas are making it harder to target actual dangerous criminals.

Stephen Miller’s goal isn’t about public safety or immigration solutions, it’s about purging immigrants from our nation no matter the cost.”

Below, find key excerpts from the New York Post story, “Trump admin’s 3,000 ICE arrests per day quota is taking focus off criminals and ‘killing morale’: insiders”

“The Trump administration’s mandate to arrest 3,000 illegal migrants per day is forcing ICE agents to deprioritize going after dangerous criminals and targets with deportation orders, insiders warn.

Instead, federal immigration officers are spending more time rounding up people off the streets, sources said.

‘All that matters is numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality,’ one Immigrations and Customs Enforcement insider told The Post. The policy is also ‘unmaintainable’ at current staffing levels, and it’s ‘killing morale,’ sources added.

…Agents are desperate to meet the White House’s high expectations, leading them to leave some dangerous criminal illegal migrants on the streets, and instead look for anyone they can get their hands on at the local Home Depot or bus stop, ICE insiders said.

‘These quotas are undermining the agency’s ability to focus on the really serious criminal aliens,’ said John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director under President Barack Obama. ‘The transnational gang members, the convicted felons, the bad actors make it hard on ICE [to] find them. They don’t just sit there and make it easy, they don’t show up in a Home Depot parking lot, hanging around,’ said Sandweg. He added: ‘They have no choice but to pivot away from that guy because you could sink a hundred hours to get that gang member and you’d get one arrest, but it’s a really good arrest and made a huge impact on public safety.’

… Another ICE source fumed that ‘it gets harder and harder’ as the days go by as agents are moving from ‘targeted operations’ aimed at catching criminals and migrants with removal orders to now hitting up ‘people in the street’ — like the raid on a Los Angeles-area Home Depot earlier this month, which drew massive protests and riots.”