Rand Paul Slams Donald Trump’s Migrant Deportation Plan: ‘Terrible Image’

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has said it would be a “terrible image” to use the United States Army to round up illegal immigrants as part of plans for mass deportations.

The nominated next Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee told Newsmax that he supported bringing back President-elect Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy but had reservations about other aspects of immigration plans.

Paul said that immigrants who had committed crime should be the first targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claiming around 15,000 migrants in the U.S. had committed murder.

“I think if we start there, we will be fine,” he said Tuesday. “I’m not in favor of sending the army in uniforms into our cities to collect people. I think it’s a terrible image.”

Paul said the military are not trained for such purposes and that it should be the job of law enforcement or domestic agencies to enforce immigration.

“While I am all for Remain in Mexico, I will not support an emergency to put the army into our cities. I think that is a huge mistake,” he told the outlet.

Trump appeared to back declaring a national emergency in order to enable his mass deportations plan on Monday, with his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt telling Newsweek that the next administration would “marshal every federal and state power necessary” to implement the program.

Paul said he was not for declaring a national emergency, adding that such moves “smack of marshal rule. They smack of no Congressional approval”.

During the first Trump presidency, when he tried to overturn DACA, Paul was one of 11 Republicans to vote against the plan, saying the move was illegal and needed Congressional approval.

The Senator said Tuesday that he was all for removing illegal immigrants, particularly those who had committed crimes, and for hardline policies such as Remain in Mexico, which would force arrivals to wait on the south side of the border while U.S. officials process their cases.

“There is to my mind some question of the people, the housekeeper who has been here thirty years, I don’t see the military putting her in handcuffs and marching her down the street to an encampment,” Paul said.

“I think that person, there might be an in-between solution where, if they are already working productively, we allow them to have a work permit. I would expand the idea of work permits but they don’t get rewarded with voting.”

Paul’s comments appeared more moderate than others from the Trump campaign and those he has nominated to oversee immigration since his election win, including Steven Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff and Tom Homan as border czar.

Homan, former acting ICE chief, has warned all illegal immigrants that he is coming for them and to self-deport ahead of January, while Miller was one of the chief architects of the last Trump administration’s border policies.

While Trump focused his campaign messaging on criminal illegal immigrants, the large numbers set to be targeted – upwards of 11 million – likely comprise the undocumented population in the U.S.

Migrant advocacy groups have raised concerns that those who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas decades ago and have families and jobs in the U.S. could be forcibly removed, despite not committing any other crimes.