There are experts on immigration saying that it’s simply impossible from a logistical or legal standpoint for Trump to achieve anywhere near the kind of grandiose promises he made to get elected on deportations. These aren’t problems that be handwaved away. The Supreme Court has long said that before individuals are deported, they’re entitled to a full and fair hearing. That means a hearing before an immigration judge where they can support defenses to deportation. The problem is those courts are tremendously backlogged. Congress has never really funded the courts to keep up with the volume. The first Trump administration’s numbers were below those of the Obama administration when it came to deportations. Now he can have jack booted thugs run around and throw suspected “illegal immigrants” in black vans and dump them over the border, but really? I don’t think so. He will need to push the envelope to try through executive orders and other regulations and things like that to strip migrants of their rights of due process. There is just zero chance he can get anywhere close to where he wants to go, unless he pushes the envelope on due process to its absolute bare minimum. We’ll see how it plays out
The first Trump admin was full of infighting, conflicting egos, power struggles, scattershot policy changes, legal squabbles, general incompetence, constant turnover, and Trump’s complete inability to stay focused. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that this time he’ll surrounded himself with hyper-competent people who will be laser-focused and 100% dedicated to carrying out his every decree.