Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said on Sunday that President-elect Trump will use military assets to execute his mass deportation plan only as an “extreme last resort.”
In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” host Martha Raddatz asked Donalds to describe in greater detail how Trump plans to carry out his mass deportation plan, which he has said would include using military assets to help execute the large undertaking.
Donalds reiterated the Trump administration’s pledge to prioritize deporting criminals who are residing in the U.S. illegally and seemed to downplay the role military assets would play.
“Well, first and foremost, we’ve been very clear throughout the entire campaign that the first order of business is going to be removing repatriating these criminal illegal aliens almost to the tune of a million of them back to their home countries. That is step one.”
“When you’re talking about military assets being used, that’s only in an extreme last resort,” Donalds said. “There are more than 6,000 officers … who have dedicated their lives to having to remove illegal aliens from our country, people who already have a legal deportation order but they haven’t – it hasn’t been effectuated by Joe Biden.”
“What Donald Trump is going to do, we’re going to repatriate those people using those personnel at ICE and other parts of the Department of Homeland Security to remove them. I think if you’re going to use military assets, that’s in the last resorts but that’s only for logistical purposes, Martha,” he continued.
Donalds cautioned Americans not to be worried about seeing military assets in their streets.
“So I think that what we have to be very careful of is not to try to throw out this idea that you’re going to have troops in the United States going door to door. That is not going to happen,” he said.
