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How could mass deportations play out in Minnesota?
President-elect Donald Trump is promising mass deportations to get a handle on illegal immigration, but may face some hurdles in doing so. FOX 9's Mike Manzoni has more on how that could play out in Minnesota.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to execute the "largest mass deportation" in the country’s history began to take shape Sunday with the announcement of a border czar.
But his plans are likely to encounter legal and logistical hurdles, experts said. Still, they noted that Trump can use existing federal law to deport undocumented immigrants.
"It will all happen within two weeks," said Ana Pottratz Acosta, a law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul. "It creates a fast-track deportation process, so if you’re not able to prove that you’ve been here for at least two years, you’re placed into this fast-track deportation process with very limited procedural due process rights."
Pottratz Acosta said the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 is now used to handle cases near the border involving those who have been in the country two weeks or fewer. But she said it could be used to deport undocumented immigrants nationwide.
There could also be logistical challenges associated with implementing widespread deportations, she said.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan think tank, there are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, about 81,000 of whom reside in Minnesota.
"I don’t know if they’ll have the manpower to execute a widescale mass deportation effort," said Pottratz Acosta.
Federal law allows the government to enlist the help of state and local authorities, but that would likely encounter pushback from Democratic governors, some of whom have already signaled they would not help.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said Friday: "We have refused to scapegoat immigrants in this state."
In 2023, he signed into law a bill that allowed undocumented immigrants to secure driver’s licenses.
"I think that is the $1,000 question right now," said Virgil Liebe, a law professor at St. Thomas University School of Law in St. Paul, referring to Walz’ options if the incoming Trump administration targets undocumented immigrants in Minnesota.
He pointed out that while Walz has control over state law enforcement, it is unclear whether he could stop local authorities from assisting the Trump administration.
"The governor could say, ‘I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to allow state agencies to do that,’" he said.