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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Donald Trump's plan for mass deportations could face a rebellion from Democratic governors across the country.
Trump won the election on Wednesday, recapturing the White House after a campaign where he repeatedly pledged to launch the biggest deportation program in U.S. history.
Trump and his campaign have offered few details about how he would implement the plan to deport the roughly 11 million people estimated to be in the country illegally.
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But he has said the plan would involve using local law enforcement agencies and deploying the National Guard, whose troops are activated on the orders of a governor.
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Stephen Miller, a Trump adviser who was behind hard-line immigration policies during Trump's first term, has said that National Guard troops from Republican-led states could be deployed into nearby, resistant states governed by Democrats to assist with deportations—a move that would likely face litigation.
The effort would involve cooperation with Republican-led states and use federal funding to pressure "sanctuary" states and jurisdictions to cooperate, Reuters reported, citing six former Trump officials and allies.
Trump "would marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers," Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Associated Press. Newsweek has contacted Leavitt for further comment via email.
However, plans for using local law enforcement and the National Guard could face roadblocks in states led by Democrats.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told MSNBC that she would "absolutely not" allow state police to assist in mass deportations if the Trump administration requested it.
"I do think it's important that we all recognize that there's going to be a lot of pressure on states and state officials, and I can assure you, we're going to work really hard to deliver," she said. "I'm sure there may be litigation ahead."
She added: "The key here is that every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law."
Asked about mass deportations during a news conference on Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters: "We will be very aggressive, both with bullhorn, with legal action, with any other action we deem to be necessary."
He added: "If it's contrary to our values, we'll fight to the death. If there is an opportunity for common ground, we'll seize that as fast as anybody."
Trump could also face barriers in the 21 other states in the country led by Democratic governors, including California, New York and New Jersey. Newsweek has contacted all of the country's Democratic governors for comment.
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, told Newsweek that "there is no question that any mass deportation program would be far more difficult to implement without the cooperation of state and local law enforcement officials."
He said that deportations "actually decreased under the first Trump administration (as compared to the Obama administration) because many state and local governments adopted robust sanctuary policies after seeing the harmful effects of interior immigration enforcement in their communities."
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University, said the "so-called sanctuary policies" mean police "will not cooperate with federal immigration officials to turn over immigrants accused of crimes."
"Such cities and states may use those policies to prevent mass arrests," Yale-Loehr told Newsweek.
The first Trump administration "threatened to deprive so-called sanctuary jurisdictions of federal funding if they failed to cooperate with immigration agents," Yale-Loehr said. "States and cities fought back, tying up the Trump administration's efforts in litigation. With more conservative judges now, it is unclear whether such lawsuits will succeed again."
Trump's team is weighing whether to withhold federal grants from local law enforcement agencies that decline to assist with deportations, NBC News reported last month.
Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, told Newsweek that states "cannot outright" stop a mass deportation operation since the Department of Homeland Security is a federal agency with the authority to enforce immigration law, but they can take action that would slow the process.
States and municipalities "can decide to have policies that prohibit the investment of local resources for federal immigration enforcement," Orozco said. "This could be through jail policies that prohibit the collection of a person's citizenship or immigration status or policies that explicitly prohibit sheriff and police departments from honoring [Immigration and Customs Enforcement's] requests to transfer a noncitizen to that agency's custody."
These kinds of policies would require DHS and ICE to "use its own federal resources to identify and arrest noncitizens who may be in the country without permission. Arresting people outside of jails can be very costly for ICE and is logistically complex."
Update 11/8/24, 4:10 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add Phil Murphy's remarks and comment from Ahilan Arulanantham and Adriel Orozco.
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