Thread by @RonBrownstein

To round up migrants, Miller said, Trump would dispatch forces to “go around the country arresting illegal immigrants in large-scale raids.” Then, it would build “large-scale staging grounds near the border, most likely in TX,” to serve as internment camps for migrants

https://twitter.com/RonBrownstein/status/1756337438316962086

From these camps, admin would schedule constant flights returning migrants to their home countries. Miller: “You create this efficiency by having these standing facilities where planes are moving off the runway constantly, probably military aircraft, some existing DHS assets"

To staff this plan, Miller said a Trump administration would reassign personnel from other federal law-enforcement agencies such as ATF & DEA, “deputize” local police and sheriffs and requisition National Guard troops

Miller offered 2 scenarios for enlisting National Guard troops in removing migrants. One would be in states where GOP governors want to cooperate. “You go to the red-state governors & you say, Give us your National Guard. We will deputize them as immigration-enforcement officers”

The second scenario, Miller said, would involve sending National Guard forces from nearby Republican-controlled states into what he called an “unfriendly state” whose governor would not willingly join the deportation program.

“If you're going to go into an unfriendly state like Maryland, well, there would just be Virginia doing the arrest in Maryland, right, very close, very nearby,” Miller said.

Jason Houser, former ICE Chief of Staff, says removing 500k to 1 million migrants a year could require as many as 100,000–150,000 deputized enforcement officers. Staffing the internment camps and constant flights that Miller is contemplating could require 50,000 more people.

Former ICE Chief of Staff Houser: “If you want to deport a million a year—and I’m a Navy officer—you are talking a mobilization the size of a military deployment"

More Houser: "You are talking about taking National Guard members out of their jobs in TX & moving them into, say, Philadelphia and having them do mass stagings. Literally as Philadelphians are leaving for work, they are going to see mass-deportation centers w/children & mothers"