Jessica Vaughan
Appearances
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Glad to be with you.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Well, I think the term mass deportations might be useful from a messaging standpoint, but what this really seems to mean is a significant boost in immigration enforcement, not only at the border, but also in the interior. That's going to end the catch and release policies that are drawing so many illegal border crossers here, but also return to enforcing the law within the country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
so that people who've been arrested for state and local crimes, people who've already had their very generous due process and been ordered removed by an immigration judge but haven't left yet, they're going to be a target.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
People who've been deported before, if they start up worksite raids, people who get caught up in that, anyone here illegally is potentially subject to deportation, although of course they're going to prioritize the most dangerous people first.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
A lot of this, again, is rhetoric for the purposes of the campaign. But you're right. There is going to be a constant pushback, a constant narrative about how cruel and heartless this policy is. And so I hope that the Trump administration will emphasize the importance of this for Americans, that this is going to create job opportunities for Americans.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
This is going to make our communities safer by removing gang members and drug traffickers. and other people who are committing crimes. But we also need to remember that what I found through my research is that it only takes a modest increase in enforcement before people start following the law on their own.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Employers realize that they could be shut down with a raid if they're hiring illegal workers, so they start doing their due diligence. In legal aliens who are sort of your regular people who came here for the opportunity of the catch and release program, but get their work permits rescinded are going to say, you know, I've had a good run here. I've saved some money. I don't want to be arrested.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
I don't want to be separated from my family. So it's time to start planning my return home. And, you know, we find that just as many people leave on their own as actually get physically removed by ICE. And that's really the humane way to do it. I don't want to see ICE having to go door to door, picking up grandmothers on their way to church.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
That's not the kind of enforcement that's going to happen. But Americans really want to see our laws enforced and have confidence in that we can have a robust legal immigration program where more people are coming legally than illegally, and hopefully not many at all coming illegally. And it will take time to get to that, but it's not going to require Gestapo tactics to get it done.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
It will happen over time, and people will start complying with the law on their own.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
But that's where the Trump administration needs to hit back and say, look, we're going after gang members. We're going after employers who are completely abusing these trafficked workers. We're going after drug dealers. And if they can keep on message with that and on task with that, then I think they're going to maintain public support.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Any so-called detention camps or temporary detention facilities, I think really the intent for that is to be at the border so that they can stop catching and releasing people. Instead, they can keep them in custody near the border and return them quickly. I don't think they contemplate that kind of situation within the interior of the country. I'm not sure the public really would support that.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
They want the laws enforced, but they want it done in a humane way, not in a way that seems cruel. I don't think we're going to see county jails full of high school kids or something like that. That just wouldn't make sense.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
People need to understand that it's almost impossible to vet anyone who's just coming across the border illegally. We have to take them at their word for their identity and their behavior in wherever they were living before.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
And that's why we have to have a legal process where people are vetted at embassies abroad when they apply for a visa and then have their identity verified again when they arrive at a legal port of entry. We cannot continue to just allow people to show up on our doorstep at the land border
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
and spend an hour asking them questions and then just releasing them to an NGO to go on to their final destination and expect that we're going to keep a good handle on who's coming in. That just doesn't work. And I do think that our government can do reasonable vetting of people when given time and using a visa process and getting the cooperation of other countries.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
And that was the basis for the so-called travel ban that Trump put into place at the beginning of his first term. The whole idea behind that was not a Muslim ban, but instead a ban on travelers who are coming from countries where we are not able to get good information about whether that person is a threat.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
And if we cannot do that, then we shouldn't be letting anyone in from those countries unless we can have confidence in our information sharing and our ability to understand who that person is and to verify their purposes for travel.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
And this whole vetting process that was started with the first so-called travel ban, a lot of that was actually preserved by the Biden administration and not scrapped. So that will not be hard to get going again. And I think there's a good case for the whole process to be... sort of upgraded and potentially look at slowing down admissions from even more countries than were on that first list.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Yeah, that's a really good question. And this is an issue that's going to be a problem, especially initially. Each one of these countries, and we call them recalcitrant countries, the countries that won't take their citizens back for deportation. And a lot of times it's criminals that we're talking about, right? It's going to take an individual approach for each country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
There's a role for diplomacy. There's a role for carrots and sticks. With the case of Venezuela, we have no relationship with Venezuela right now. But we need to remember also that a lot of the Venezuelans who came here and took advantage of the catch and release policies at the border were living in other countries before they came here.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
They were firmly settled with jobs and permission to stay in these countries. And I think we are going to have to try to work with some of those countries to take them back. Maybe not in the case of, you know, gang members like TDA or hardened criminals, but other people who were doing fine in Chile or Peru or Argentina and now are going to lose their work permit.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
With the criminals, it's going to take a tougher approach with Venezuela, but there's a tool in the law that allows our government through the State Department to impose a visa ban on countries or groups of people within countries as a sanction to try to get them to relent in their stance of not taking someone back.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
So you could go to a country like Venezuela or China and say, look, we're not going to issue visas to your diplomats. or we're not going to issue visas to your kids of government officials who want to come to school in the United States, or to the wives of government officials who want to go visit Vegas, or these people who want to go to Disney World.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Those visas simply are going to be cut off until you start living up to your international responsibilities and take your citizens back. And this has been successful at times in the past when it has been applied. Again, it depends on the country. A country like Haiti, that's a tough situation. We may have to work with third countries on the Haitians.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
But, you know, there are tools that we have at our disposal. Maybe we use carrots instead of sticks, offer aid, offer something that those countries want. But we do have leverage and tools available to us. The problem is they've never been used by the federal. I shouldn't say never.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
They were never used under Biden, but they haven't been used as much as we should be using them to lean on these countries. So we just, you know, they can't just dump all of their criminals and dissidents and everything else on our doorstep.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Right. The groundwork has to be laid through a public relations campaign for how this is going to be messaged and make sure people understand why it needs to happen.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Well, this also could be a big problem for the Trump administration because as we saw in the first Trump term, the sanctuary jurisdictions became very, very recalcitrant and obstructive and painted this narrative of an overzealous immigration enforcement. And so they started passing laws that forbid local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
And what that does is it necessarily means that the criminals that ICE is trying to get for removal are going to be released back to the streets and they end up committing more crimes. There's a couple ways to address it. I think one way is what has been tried, and that is to, since most of these sanctuary policies are in place for political reasons, they're not going to change.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
They think they get a benefit from that, even though it's a problem for public safety. So what you have to do is either start withholding certain federal funds from these jurisdictions that don't cooperate, certain federal law enforcement grant programs.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
You just have to say, look, if you're going to block our federal agents from getting custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails, then you're just not going to have access to grants for... certain law enforcement agencies in your state or in your city. And that did work to change certain jurisdictions.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Like, for example, Miami-Dade County in Florida said, well, we don't want to lose that money, so we're going to start cooperating with ICE again. So there will be some that come around like that. With others, you may have to file lawsuits.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
I think in other places, again, a public relations campaign on the part of ICE by saying, look, this week, the New York City Police Department released these criminals who we were trying to deport. And if they commit a crime, now you know why. It's because your own police department released them. And I think that kind of public attention to what's really going on could work really well for ICE.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Another thing Congress could do is give a private right of action for victims of these crimes if they're serious, to potentially hold the local sanctuary government liable for any problems that are caused when they deliberately release somebody that ICE was trying to take into custody for removal. That's the kind of thing that really gets their attention.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
Well, there's no question it's going to make it much, much harder without the support of local law enforcement agencies. If ICE has to start taking to the streets to arrest people in public at their dwelling, or in other situations that's really visible to the public.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
It's dangerous, first of all, for ICE and for bystanders, but that's exactly the kind of operation that's going to generate a lot of public backlash. So it would be better if they don't have to do that. Another thing they could do... So a lot of these sanctuary policies are in place for political reasons.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
But there's also an argument that's made that if local police have to cooperate with ICE, then immigrants in the community are not going to trust them, are not going to come forward to report crimes. And I've actually learned from studying the Department of Justice data on victimizations that that's not true, that actually immigrants and even illegal immigrants
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
report crimes just as frequently as Americans do. But I think if there could be some outreach to immigrant communities to explain what ICE's priorities are and how they're going to operate and who they're looking for and why they need the cooperation, that itself could actually help restore some of that trust or at least
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
provide another way to get that trust in immigrant communities to avoid these kinds of fear campaigns that the sanctuary jurisdictions try to use to discredit ICE. You know, they should be working with immigrant communities, with leaders, and with local law enforcement agencies to find ways that immigrants can access
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
public safety services without, you know, being worried that something's going to come back to haunt them. I mean, there's, you know, there's so many good community-oriented policing programs around this country that we can turn to that the sanctuary policies really have no basis or no justification in reality.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | November 23rd, 2024: Ukraine’s Deadly Weapons Race & the Mass Deportation Debate
That would be my pleasure. I've enjoyed our talk.