THIN ICE

Donald Trump’s plan to carry out the largest mass deportation in history is already facing a slew of legal and logistical obstacles.

• Here we are again, back in the era of angsty, post-midnight, executive Twitter thumbs. President-elect Donald Trump awoke, apparently, just before dawn on Monday (from under, I presume, his usual pile of empty KFC buckets and bedside remote controls) to make a big, controversial pronouncement on national policy on social media… as if being the president really meant trolling the country online. “TRUE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 4:03 a.m., affirming another post stating he plans to declare a national emergency to use the military to carry out mass deportations. It’s the clearest insight Trump’s given into how exactly he would try to follow through with his lofty immigration promises.

• But Trump’s big deportation plan is already facing pushback — and creaking under the weight of its own massive, overblown scale. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed over 400 legal challenges against the first Trump administration, is gearing up for battle against this plan. The civil rights nonprofit is suing the federal government for more information on Trump’s plans, including how quickly mass deportations can be carried out, while alleging that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn’t responded to requests for basic info about its flight and transportation programs. If the past is precedent, this may be the opening salvo of a broader campaign against Trump’s  immigration agenda. “Trump actually cannot enact this plan without the help of governors — he cannot do this without having governors helping him round folks up,” AJ Hikes, deputy executive director for strategy and culture at the ACLU, our friends at the What A Day podcast. “He needs attorneys general, state legislatures, and we have been working with those folks for months to, frankly, prepare to cut off that help.”

• Trump’s lengthy track record of incompetence suggests there may be a big gap between what he says he’ll do, and what his administration can actually accomplish. “The good news for us is that these people are fucking morons,” one D.C.-based immigration lawyer told What A Day. “That is not to say that they are not to be taken seriously.” Still, this lawyer worries the Trump team may bog down the immigration system, which is already overloaded with a backlog of nearly 4 million cases , to the point where people simply give up, especially when faced with detention. “They’re going to throw sand in the gears of legal immigration at every possible opportunity,” he said.

• Another factor that’ll make Trump’s immigration plans hard to execute: Deporting a record number of people is a logistical nightmare. Ramping up deportations dramatically will cost a lot of money and require many more hands on deck than are currently available, according to experts. The process of finding, detaining and removing migrants alone is incredibly expensive (about $10,000 per person, by some estimates). But Trump wants to quadruple the number of deportations in a year, which would likely require hiring tens of thousands  more ICE agents, an influx that training academies couldn’t handle. Lawmakers would need to approve more funding, and ICE would also need to massively expand  the detention center space it currently has to hold migrants. A pro-immigrants group estimated Trump’s program to cost at least $315 billion. The president-elect, however, has said there’s no “price tag.”

One more complicating factor: Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security — like his other cabinet selections — has very little experience with her new department. What could go wrong?

NOT MUCH TO BRAGG ABOUT

Donald Trump could still face jail time one day for his 34 felony convictions in New York. But, apparently, it won’t be anytime soon.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is fighting Trump’s request to dismiss his felony conviction, stemming from his hush money trial in which a jury found Trump guilty of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal payment.

Instead, Bragg has proposed  freezing the case for four years — until Trump leaves office.

“The people deeply respect the office of the president, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge that defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions,” prosecutors wrote to Judge Juan Merchan. “We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system.”

The recommendation sets the stage for another challenge from Trump, who has fought hard to have this case tossed out. Trump’s sentencing, which was scheduled for next week, will very likely be delayed

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Ukraine fired six U.S.-provided long-range missiles into Russia for the first time in its war, which reached the 1,000-day mark today. That comes as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin formally lowered his threshold for using nuclear weapons today, seemingly in response to the U.S. allowing Ukraine to strike further into the country.

Famed anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tapped to lead public health policy under Donald Trump, said in 2020 he believed the pandemic might’ve been planned by the U.S. government: “Many people argue that this pandemic was a ‘plandemic,’ that it was planned from the outset, it’s part of a sinister scheme. I can’t tell you the answer to that. I don’t have enough evidence. A lot of it feels very planned to me,” he said in previously-unreported remarks. Not that lack of evidence has ever stopped him from peddling a conspiracy theory!

Trump picked Dr. Mehmet Oz — yes, the celebrity television doctor — to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, overseeing health insurance programs that cover more than 150 million Americans, according to the New York Times. The number of TV personalities nominated to top Trump positions: three. He also chose Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street financier and his transition team co-chair, to be secretary of commerce, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a bill to keep transgender women from using the Capitol Hill bathrooms, aimed at Sarah McBride, who will be the first transgender member of Congress. McBride shot back, calling it a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”

MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with Trump to mend ties last week because they were “credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration,” two people familiar with the matter told CNN. That’s definitely a sign of a healthy democracy! The hosts of “Morning Joe” quaking in their boots over the possibility of authoritarian backlash. Jeesh.

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