Editorials: Slow deportation rate

President Trump and senior administration officials reportedly are frustrated with the pace of immigrant deportations. Border “czar” Thomas Homan reported Feb. 11 that just 14,000 immigrants had been arrested by Immigration Customs and Enforcement. Trump expects that at least 1,200 per day should be detained, but the number is just 600.

Homeland Security Secretary Krisi Noem fired two top ICE officials for “lack of results.”

The administration launched with a bang by sweeping up immigrants in so-called “sanctuary cities” like Chicago. It was reported that criminal aliens are sought out first. The sluggishness results from several factors: a lack of personnel, not enough money, and overcrowded jails with domestic inmates, for starters.

Trump promised that he would deport all undocumented immigrants, numbering more than 10 million. The administration has asked for $175 billion per year to get the job done — triple the current budget. To help pay for it, the administration fired 3,400 USDA employees. The park ranger at Iowa’s Effigy Mounds National Monument got his pink slip to help sate the president’s appetite.

Storm Lake carried for Trump. His primary campaign pledge was to deport all undocumented immigrants, not just criminals. Many local residents, including Latinos, believed that he would not mess with Storm Lake for fear of setting off hyper-inflation in food prices. Sen. Joni Ernst said as much, that the focus would first be on criminal aliens. Homan said that the net would be cast wider after the “hundreds of thousands” of criminal foreigners are arrested.

We are not aware of any raids of food processing plants. Homan had promised worksite enforcement. It is not happening here or anyplace else in Iowa. As Elon Musk would say, the people voted to deport undocumented immigrants. The job is not getting done. That’s because nobody really wants to shut down meatpacking plants or sweep up field workers putting food on your table.

Meanwhile, upwards of 10,000 military troops have been sent to a quiet border with nothing to do. Attempted border crossings plummeted when the Biden Administration put its heart on ice and shut down the asylum system for refugees. Mexico agreed to help stanch the flow of refugees from other countries like Guatemala long before Trump took office. Before Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico, 10,000 Mexican troops were dispatched to the border for immigrant and drug interdiction.

Every federal agency has made immigration enforcement a priority, even the IRS.

Still, the level of arrests is unimpressive. It’s the lowest since the1990s.

The administration has challenged states to up their budgets to help in the roundup and detention. Gov. Kim Reynolds claims she is committed to the cause.

If Trump intends to make good on his word, he will have to start where the immigrants are: on the job site.

Watch out, Storm Lake. You might get what you asked for if Trump, Noem and Homan can ever get their act together. It will be an economic catastrophe for this community if the campaign promises somehow could be realized. For now, the administration is confronted with the impracticality of it all. People who cast their lot with Trump are confronted with the fact that they are not getting what they voted for, except for the fear and cruelty. Storm Lake has a large number of undocumented immigrants waiting for the raid. That is the entire point.

Neither do turkeys

Sleep well with geniuses like this in charge: “So what we need to do is have better ways, biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure so that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens, to have a better, smarter perimeter, and so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on, and we’re finalizing the ideas about how to do that with the best scientists in government, and that’s the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago, and if it had, the egg prices would be a lot better than they are now. But the avian flu is a real thing, and by the way, it’s spread mostly by ducks and geese. Think about it. they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly.” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.