President Trump 2.0: Mass deportation programme and oil drilling on first day in office

Unlike after surprise win in 2016, 78-year-old has fully formed plan for what he will do once he takes levers of power in 2025

In Donald Trump’s own words, his second term will be “nasty a little bit at times, and maybe at the beginning in particular”.
Unlike his surprise win in 2016, when the Republicans’ preparations for America’s highest office were chaotic and marred by infighting, the 78-year-old has a fully formed plan for what he will do once he holds the levers of power in 2025.
His “day one” agenda involves rapid and aggressive action to target illegal immigration, a purge of the federal government and a grievance-filled agenda to pursue opponents.
Trump has pledged to dramatically curb illegal immigration in the US with the assistance of local law enforcement and state police.
He has even signalled he has “no problem” deploying the military and national guard troops to aid the effort.
There are potential constitutional issues with mobilising service members on domestic soil, but Trump has floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to give him the power required to direct troops, describing the border crisis as an “invasion”.
Central to his plan for cutting down the number of people living in the country illegally is his proposal to launch the “largest deportation programme in history”. It would aim to remove the estimated 11 million people residing in the US without legal status.
Trump’s team has provided few details on how they would identify these individuals, or how they would fund the operation.
The Republican has suggested using the Alien Enemies Act – a rarely applied legal power dating back to 1798 and last used for the Japanese-American internment camps – to detain immigrants without a hearing.
The round-up and mass deportation flights operation would cost more $88 billion (£68.4 billion) for one million people, or a total of $968 billion for all 11 million, according to a report by research firm the American Immigration Council.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s former immigration tsar and senior adviser, has outlined plans to construct detention facilities capable of holding 50,000 to 70,000 people as an interim solution.
The cost of detaining migrants en masse would be higher still, not to mention the economic cost of lost labour for American businesses.
Trump’s team has argued the expense “pales in comparison” to the burden on the state for processing, housing and providing social services to migrants who have recently entered the US.
Trump and Republicans in Congress will look to fund a substantial border security package, which would include completion of his signature wall.
His immigration policy includes a vow to reinstate his so-called “Muslim travel ban” that barred people from several Muslim-majority countries.
He said earlier this year: “We will seal our border and bring back the travel ban.
“Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world,” he said, adding that it would be extended to include refugees from Gaza. “We’re not taking them from infested countries.”
Trump has also vowed to challenge the principle of birthright citizenship, which under the 14th Amendment, grants automatic citizenship to the children of immigrants.
Trump’s plans to test the power of the presidency beyond any modern precedent extend to a root-and-branch gutting of the government.
He plans to use sweeping executive orders to replace thousands of career civil servants with political appointees who have been vetted to ensure they subscribe to his political ideology.
Swathes of the department of justice (DoJ), including much of the FBI, would be done away with, while the department of education would be abolished.
A top priority for a second Trump White House and his GOP allies in Congress is to extend his signature legislative achievement: his 2017 tax cuts.
As things stand, the legislation – the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – is set to expire at the end of 2025.
Trump has also proposed widespread changes to taxation, including extending the child tax credit, bringing back the deduction for state and local taxes (Salt) and cutting companies’ corporate tax rate for domestic production.
He has also promoted exemptions to income tax, such as ending taxes on social security and tipped wages, and said he backed a total end to income tax, although he has given no firm commitment to doing so.
Trump has summarised his energy policy with the catchphrase “drill, baby, drill”.
It involves a widespread resumption in oil and gas licensing and halting offshore wind energy projects, which he claims “kill” whales and birds, “on day one” in the White House. Trump has also vowed to end green tax credits and subsidies.
Trump plans to dramatically ramp up the protectionist trade policies of his first term, threatening a tariff of more than 10 per cent on all foreign imports, and perhaps even a 100 per cent tariff on some Chinese-made products.
He said he believed it would redress a trade imbalance and unfair practices by other countries who were “stealing” the US’s jobs and wealth.
Trump said China was the leading culprit, but described India, Brazil, France and other European nations as “very difficult to deal with on trade”.
He dismissed suggestions that the policies could have an inflationary impact, framing it as “reciprocal” action that would return jobs to the US.
For Trump, one of the most alluring powers of the presidency is its oversight of the department of justice.
Seizing control of the department, and stocking it full of his allies, will be vital to both his personal and political agenda.
The four-times indicted president-elect will take office as a defendant in two federal criminal cases brought by the prosecutor Jack Smith. The independent special counsel has been pursuing Trump for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and accusations he mishandled classified documents. While the latter case has been dismissed, Mr Smith is working to have it reinstated.
In the run-up to the presidential election, Trump told the radio host Hugh Hewitt that if he regained the White House, he would fire Mr Smith “within two seconds”.
The DoJ’s tradition of political independence has been a hallmark of the post-Watergate era, but Trump predicted to Hewitt that he would not face any repercussions for intervening. “I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” he said.
Trump has also pledged to exercise control over the DoJ by securing the pardon or release of convicted rioters serving sentences for their roles in the Jan 6 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Trump has not ruled out instructing federal prosecutors to instigate legal proceedings against or fire those who do not follow his direction. “It would depend on the situation,” he said.
Asked whether he would go after Joe Biden and his family, the Republican said he would be “inclined not to do it”.
But he later added: “Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he’s committed many crimes,” without specifying exactly what these were.