Homan directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while it held a “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separated migrant children from their parents at the southern border. He plans to execute workplace raids, detaining immigrants en masse.

There are an estimated 11 million migrants in the United States that are not authorized to remain. Many have been in the country for a decade or longer.

Trump said of deporting every migrant who entered the United States without authorization “I think you have to do it.”

Esteban Rivera, immigration attorney and owner of the Rivera Law Firm in Minneapolis, told UPI that Trump’s incoming administration has caused a lot of fear in the immigrant community. His clients have expressed concerns about swiftly being removed from the country, having family members and friends deported and the impact it can all have on children and their financial situations.

“Some of the fear is legitimate fear. Some of the fear is overblown,” Rivera said. “People who are U.S. citizens, I don’t think the government is going to revoke their certificates of naturalization. Or people who are adopted by U.S. citizens, I don’t think those people need to be worried about their situation.”

The legitimate fear, Rivera said, is for people who are in the United States without authorization and have committed deportable offenses like domestic violence or firearm- and drug-related offenses. Those with work visas who have criminal offenses on their record may also see their visas revoked.

These concerns also exist under the administration of President Joe Biden.

“We’ve lived through a Trump administration before. The biggest difference from Trump in the first administration and the second is first, now he has more knowledge of what to do and what not to do, second, when Trump was president the first time, the Supreme Court was more divided equally in terms of liberals and conservatives, ” Rivera said. “Now that the Supreme Court has more conservatives, there is fear that he will be allowed to do everything he wants. And at least for the first two years, he will have the House and the Senate.”

Kelli Stump is an immigration attorney practicing in Oklahoma. She has been practicing for 18 years. She is also the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Stump told UPI she expects Trump to aggressively approach immigration policy again.

“He did everything that he promised he was going to do in 1.0,” Stump said. “He’s had even more time to prepare and focus.”

About 3.6 million people are already in removal proceedings — undergoing or scheduled to appear for hearings to determine if they will be deported. This is an increase of more than 1 million people over fiscal year 2023.

There are fewer than 700 immigration judges serving in 71 courts in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 2021, the Biden administration issued priorities for enforcement to emphasize the removal of non-citizens who posed a threat to public safety due to serious criminal conduct. Non-citizens with no criminal record often received relief or had their cases dismissed due to the immense backlog of cases.

Stump has received a lot of questions from clients who have had cases dismissed. The prevailing concern is that their cases will be automatically refiled.

“What is driving the fear is the promise of mass detention and expedited hearings,” Stump said. “What I’m trying to help clients understand is until [Trump] gets into office and we see how he is going to do things, we have to process under the current state of affairs and the laws in place to protect individuals from due process violations.”

According to ICE, fewer people who have been removed in fiscal year 2024 had criminal convictions than in 2023. Meanwhile more have been removed for other immigration violations.

About 1.5 million people have been deported since Biden took office, roughly the same as Trump’s first term and President Barack Obama‘s last term in office. Trump and Biden saw deportations slow when safety protocols were in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deporting 11 million people, as Trump has proposed, would require an average of 2.75 million deportations per year. This would also require space for people to be detained.

“To house immigrants you need facilities. The available population you can arrest, housing in detention facilities is about 2 million people in the U.S.,” Rivera said. “I don’t think it is possible because you have to house other people there too. Also you don’t have enough judges or deportation officers.”

At the end of 2022, there were about 1.8 million people incarcerated in state, federal or local jails, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. A report from the University of Nebraska Center for Justice Research found that prisons in most states were near or beyond their operational capacity.

“I do expect the numbers to grow, yes,” Rivera said of deportations. “Probably the high-400,000 to 500,000. The highest number during Obama was a little over 400,000 in a year. I don’t expect it to be possible to deport 11 million people.”

Much has been made of the impact mass deportations would have on the economy and the workforce. Rivera also looks at the personal impacts of deportation.

“The biggest problem is they are human beings,” Rivera said. “Basically you’re tearing families apart. I have many clients who grew up with a father or a mother outside of the country. It is very hard.”

If someone is worried about being deported, Stump advises that they ask an immigration attorney if they are in removal proceedings. If so, there may be relief options. Whether they are in removal proceedings or not, they can prepare applications and important documents now in the case that they face deportation later.

“If you’re placed in custody it’s a race against the clock,” Stump said. “Get your evidence on file so we are ready to use it overnight. If you’re married to a U.S. citizen or have citizen parents or children and can show you’ve been in the U.S. for 10 years. If deportation will cause significant hardship to those relatives: gather birth certificates of spouses, kids, parents. If you have to drop everything and act you already have everything to file for protection in place.”

The avenues for protection and relief vary on a case-by-case basis, Rivera explained.

If a migrant can demonstrate they were persecuted or have a fear of persecution in their home country due to their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion, they may be eligible for asylum. U.S. citizens may petition for parents, spouses, children and siblings to be granted asylum derivatives.

“There may be different solutions for people in the same family,” Rivera said. “What they need to do first is consult with an immigration lawyer to see if I have an avenue to stay in the U.S. I’ve met with a lot of people who, unbeknownst to them, qualify for something.”