Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been outspoken on his positions on immigration. He has now released details of his specific plans for immigration reform as part of his presidential platform.
One of item of particular note for federal workers: his plan would triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers that are currently on the federal payroll.
This is the relevant excerpt from the immigration reform plan on Trump’s website:
As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: “Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission…Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.” This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.
In addition to tripling the number of ICE agents, one of the key points (and, perhaps, one of the most controversial) of Trump’s plan would involve building a wall on the Mexican border and requiring Mexico to pay for construction of the wall.
Trump recently drew a lot of media attention after the first debate of Republican presidential candidates. Polls and media reports released at that time showed Trump making big gains after the debate aired.
A poll on FedSmith.com showed that the opinions of our users also mirrored this trend. We asked our users who they thought won the debate, and out of the more than 5,000 responses received, 37% of respondents said they thought that Trump came out on top. Marco Rubio was a distant second at 14%.
