Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said there will be ways of deporting illegal immigrants other than going to door-to-door, Axios reported Thursday.
Speaking at an event for the outlet earlier in the week, Crenshaw said deportations will be in the plans for the incoming Trump administration, particularly in the first couple of months. President-elect Donald Trump has long positioned himself as a border hawk and has promised he will conduct mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
"We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump said last month during a speech in Los Angeles. "And we're going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado]."
Crenshaw said the images of agents knocking on doors likely won't happen and was a tactic used to frighten undecided voters.
"I think a lot of people, they want it to mean this to scare folks politically, and I think this was the case during the election — was this sort of door-to-door type of mass deportation," he said.
Crenshaw added that not only is there no desire to go door-to-door, there aren't enough agents to carry out such an operation.
"We don't have the resources for that. I don't see that happening," he said. "There's plenty of deportation to do prior to getting to that point, so I just don't think anyone should fear this idea."
Crenshaw noted that any initial efforts to deport illegal immigrants will focus on criminals already identified by Homeland Security Investigations. Workplace violations are on the radar of the administration, with Crenshaw offering a hypothetical situation where "every once in awhile" there is a "roundup of a certain company" known to hire people who entered the country illegally.
Tom Homan, picked by Trump as border czar, denied allegations that the administration plans to remove U.S. citizens under any planned mass deportation operation. During a "60 Minutes" interview in October, Homan said "families can be deported together" leaving many to assume U.S. citizens would be included.
"President Trump made it clear we will prioritize public safety threats and national security threats first," Homan said Monday on Fox News. "That's what the focus will be. There are over 1.5 million convicted criminal aliens in this country with orders for removal who we'll be looking for, there are thousands of gang members we'll be looking for."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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