During a talk show appearance on Newsmax, Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul came out in opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s floated plan to use the military to enact mass deportations in American cities.
“I will not support an emergency to put the Army into our cities. I think that’s a huge mistake,” Paul said Tuesday on “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”
Paul said he supports removing people who illegally enter the country, especially those who have committed crimes, but said he does not support the “army marching up and down our streets,” saying it would be a poor image for the country to project.
“There is, to my mind, some question of the people, the housekeeper who's been here 30 years, and I don't see the military putting her in handcuffs and marching her down the street to an encampment,” Paul said. “I don't really want to see that.”
Trump’s signature campaign promise was to begin the largest deportation effort in American history shortly after he takes office in January, and earlier this week he indicated on social media that he would employ military resources via national emergency to make that happen.
While the military, primarily in the form of the National Guard, has frequently provided support for immigration enforcement at the border, they are generally prohibited by federal law from domestic law enforcement.
On his Truth Social site, Trump recirculated a post Monday by Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, saying his incoming administration will declare an immigration national emergency and use military assets to support his mass deportation pledge. Trump called the claim “TRUE!!!”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, who recently stepped down as the longtime Republican leader of the Senate, has so far been silent on Trump’s deportation plan. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In comments to the Lexington Herald-Leader, several members of Kentucky’s U.S. House delegation appeared to support just such a plan, including Rep. Andy Barr, Thomas Massie, James Comer and Hal Rogers.
In a statement, Massie said he has yet to see details of a militarized deportation plan, “but I support President Trump's strong mandate to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.”
Paul, who will serve as the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in the interview that soldiers don’t have the training domestic agencies do, like securing warrants.
Paul has frequently decried U.S. military involvement abroad. He said he is wary of most declared presidential emergencies.
“They smack of martial rule; they smack of no congressional approval; they smack of no checks and balances,” Paul said.
Over the past year and presidential election cycle, GOP legislators have focused on illegal immigration in the state. Earlier this year, Kentucky Republicans jumped on a bandwagon of several other Republican-controlled state legislatures in passing a resolution to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his dispute with the Biden administration over securing the U.S. border with Mexico.
Republicans also put a measure on the ballot to ban noncitizen voting in state and local elections this year — it passed overwhelmingly, further cementing what is already state and federal law.
In a legislative hearing this month, lawmakers probed Jeremy Bacon, the field office assistant director for Kentucky’s branch of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. When asked if the field office currently has the capacity to conduct mass deportations, the official said he doesn’t know without seeing the next administration’s plan in detail.
“I can tell you that we're limited manpower wise, and I don't see that changing anytime soon,” Bacon said.
Trump’s selected “border czar” Tom Homan, the former acting head of ICE during Trump’s first administration, has promised unprecedented deportation operations, but said the scale will depend on Congressional support.
A report from the American Immigration Council, an immigration rights research and policy firm, estimated deporting the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. would cost $967.9 billion over the course of more than a decade.
The council also noted that “there is simply no reality in which such a singular operation is possible” to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country.
Kentucky Public Radio's Joe Sonka contributed to this reporting.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
