Trump declaring national emergency at border would not lead to militarization of country, expert says

Fears over President-elect Trump’s plan to declare a state of emergency at the border and make use of the military as part of a mass deportation plan have been overblown, according to one expert.

“The country is not going to be militarized,” Alfonso Aguilar, a former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship and the director of Hispanic engagement at the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital. “Neighborhoods with immigrants are not going to militarize.”

The comments come after Trump confirmed Monday via Truth Social a report that he is “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.”

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team, told Fox News Digital.

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Former President Trump speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border on Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

Such plans have been rumored for much of Trump’s campaign, raising fears among some critics that a future Trump administration would deploy the military onto American streets.

“They are promising to use the military to do mass raids of American families at a scale that harkens back to some of the worst things our country has done,” Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization, told The Associated Press in October.

But Aguliar argued that the military is to play a support role, providing logistics support to the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“There is a lot of fearmongering from the left and many in the media,” Aguliar said. “These are not going to be sweeps of neighborhoods, these are going to be targeted arrests… initially going after criminals.”

“I would anticipate that the military would participate in a supportive capacity,” he continued. “You’re detaining people, you’re going to need to move these people and provide shelter.”

ICE officers look to arrest an undocumented immigrant during an operation in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn on April 11, 2018, in New York City. (John Moore/Getty Images)

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Aguilar pointed out that federal law limits how Trump can use the military domestically, meaning ICE officers are likely to lead deportation efforts with a logistical hand from the military. On the border, the military would serve as a show of force while also helping be the eyes and ears for Border Patrol officers who are stretched thin across multiple sectors.

“That’s historically how we use the military,” Aguliar said. “Force projection to dissuade people from coming in, but their role is basically to help detect… helping move [migrants] to buses… all the logistical support.”

Aguliar also argued that ICE is likely to make wider use of workplace raids, where again the military’s logistical might could be harnessed to assist with detaining and transporting arrested migrants.

“They’re not going to set loose the military in neighborhoods trying to detect illegal immigrants,” Aguliar said.

In this undated photo, Texas National Guardsmen fortify razor wire in El Paso, Texas. (Gov. Greg Abbotts office)

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Meanwhile, many blue state leaders have announced plans to push back against Trump’s deportations plans, with Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey saying she is prepared to use “every tool in the tool box” to protect the state’s migrant residents and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker vowing to “do everything that I can to protect our undocumented immigrants.”

“We cannot prohibit them, federal law enforcement, from coming into our state to, you know, conduct raids or do anything else like that,” Pritzker said last week. “Meanwhile, I think it would be very difficult for them to just spread out across the country. They don’t have enough manpower within the Department of Homeland Security in order to carry that out.”