Trump confirms he,ll use US military in mass deportations

Immigrant advocates question legality of proposal, raise alarm about potential fallout

US President-elect Donald Trump confirmed on Nov 18 that he intended to declare a national emergency and use the military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations of immigrants who do not have legal residency status.

On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump responded overnight to a post made in November by Mr Tom Fitton, who runs conservative group Iudicial Watch and who wrote that Trump's administration would "declare a national emergency and will use military assets" to address illegal immigration "through a mass deportation programme".

Around 4am, Trump reposted Mr Fitton's post with the comment: "True! ! !"

Congress has granted presidents broad power before to declare national emergencies at their discretion, unlocking standby powers that include redirecting funds lawmakers had appropriated for other purposes. During his first term, for example, Trump invoked this power to spend more on a border wall than Congress had been willing to authorise.

In interviews with The New York Times during the Republican primary campaign, described in an article published in November 2023, Trump's top immigration policy adviser Stephen Miller said that military funds would be used to build "vast holding facilities that would function as staging centres" for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries.

The Homeland Security Department would run the facilities, he said.

One major impediment to the vast deportation operation that the Trump team has promised in his second term is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, lacks the space to hold a significantly larger number of detainees than it currently does.