"2025": Mass Deportation

Chapter 6: History Tells Us that Deporting 15 Million People Guarantees a Humanitarian Nightmare; Here's What It Could Look Like

One of the clearest commitments being made by Donald Trump on the campaign trail is to unleash the largest mass deportation in history—which he says will involve deporting 15-20 million. History tells us that any operation of that massive scale, fueled by the type of rhetoric he uses (that blood is being “poisoned") will create both a dangerous humanitarian nightmare as well as a broader upheaval of the nation. The deportation camps being described, patrolled by reservists and the military, would take us back to some of America’s darkest days.

Chapter 6 of “2025” takes place at one of the countless deportation camps that they are pledging they will create:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

June

Capitol Monthly

“Alvaro”

By Rose Cunningham

WEST TEXAS

“Mama, tengo tanta hambre.”

I’m so hungry.

Alvaro spoke strong English thanks to a grandmother who’d begun teaching him at 3, and almost three years of elementary school in Chicago.

But Mama preferred Spanish, especially when she was so worn down. Too tired to search her mind for words.

“Didn’t you have dinner?” she asked.

“They ran out of food. And older kids stole mine.”

“Again? Did you tell anybody?”

“Who do I tell? The guards laughed as they did it.”

“Where are the ones that used to protect you?”

“It’s different now. Some are gone. Some of them laugh too.”

It was like everything else at the center. It started bad, and quickly grew worse.

They had less space than ever. More cots, yes, but even more people. Every day, more people. Alvaro lost his cot the third week there.

The buildings were more dirty. More smelly. More rat- and bug-infested.

The food tasted worse and worse, and the portions grew smaller. Now, if you were late to the line, they ran out. Tonight, it was late kids who took his food and pushed him down.

Then there were the guards. At first they were calm. They looked fresh and clean and young. Serious, but respectful.

But as weeks went by, they grew tired and unhappy. Some angry.

Then new guards appeared. They were older, and much worse. Some were cruel, like the ones who’d laughed in the cafeteria. Some were violent. Yesterday, feet from Alvaro, a gray-haired guard slapped a boy again and again. Finally a younger guard stepped in, but the boys nose was already broken.

There had been an initial order to the center. Like a large school, just with fences. But too many families and angry guards meant that order quickly disappeared.

The prisoners in the camp also changed.

Every morning, plumes of dust in the distance signaled that the next wave of prisoners was arriving. Minutes later, the tall fence slid open and old black buses entered the camp and parked. Guards took the new women and children from the buses into the processing center.

While frightened and lost, the new families looked alive. Healthy. Their clothes and faces and hair appeared far more fresh than those of the prisoners they were joining. That would change in days, Alvaro knew. And by the time families lined up to board the green buses that took them away, they looked like ghosts.

But the prisoners changed in another way. The early waves, who arrived with Alvaro and Mama, were of course frightened. Confused and sad, like he had been. Uncertain what their fate held.

But within weeks, their mood turned to fear. Not about the future. Or where they would all go. But about each day. About survival, and personal safety. Threatened not just by the camp, or the guards. But by each other.

Everyone clung to their cot. Craved food and water. Held tight to the few possessions they’d grabbed when the new government came.

Tensions only heightened when guards began erecting tents outside to manage the overflow of prisoners, rotating families through them in multi-week shifts. Every two weeks or so meant more tents, and more rotations. Those who returned inside from their time in the tents looked like phantoms.

And the fear and desperation from it all often spilled into anger. Kids fighting each other. Mothers fighting kids and one another. There were no men, or they would fight too.

And now it was stifling hot. Anyone stuck in the tents had no escape from the heat. And during the day, all the kids and healthy mothers were sent outside, so they endured the worst of it as well. The guards at least got breaks. The prisoners ambled outside the whole day, no breaks. They could only escape the sun along the walls of the buildings. Of course the strongest occupied those shadowed places. Which made others even more angry.

“Did Manuel help you?”

“I told you, Mama, Manuel has left.”

Manuel, his final friend.

The center was unlike school, where Alvaro made friends and they stayed friends. At the camp, he made a friend one week. They laughed. Played games. Talked about girls and soccer and their homes. Stood together to get food, protecting one another.

“I’m sorry, Alvaro. I know you liked him.”

Then one day, that new friend disappeared. Driven away in a green bus, with no goodbye. Like he had never been there at all.

Which made the center lonely all over again.

After rotating through four or five friends, Alvaro stopped trying to make friends at all. Starting over every few weeks was too difficult. Too much loss. Too lonely.

He decided to wait until he and Mama left the center. Once they arrived at their new home, he would make friends he could keep. The time spent making the friends would no longer feel like wasted time.

Without friends, the center become lonely in a new way. Everyone became a stranger. Less human, just bodies and faces. But it was still better than the continual loss of new friends.

Alvaro’s approach to others became simpler. More calculated. He guessed who would take his food. Who would fight him. And who would not. This helped him decide what group to accompany to the cafeteria so he could safely eat. Tonight, he missed the good groups and ate nothing.

Mama beckoned to him.

“Come here, mi hijo.”

She lay in a metal cot, next to the thin blanket on the hard floor where Alvaro spent his nights.

Her’s was one of hundreds of cots in the large room—row after row spread across a concrete floor as large as eight or ten basketball gyms from his school in Chicago.

The giant room was like a village. People and cots and blankets everywhere.  Noises too. Talking and crying and yelling. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes singing. Sometimes a woman telling a story, children gathered around. All of it echoing against the walls so that the sound came from all directions.

At first it was deafening. But Alvaro learned to tune it all out. And as green buses took people from the camp, Alvaro and Mama moved to the newly empty spaces, positioning themselves closer to one corner of the huge room. They had no privacy, really, but the corner made it feel as if they did.

He scooted over towards her.

Mama put her hand on his forehead. Her fingers were thin. Her palm dry.

Then she cast her smile. And for a moment, the entire camp disappeared. All of his tension faded.

It was his first and oldest memory. From his youngest days in San Benito. Mama’s smile—and all that changed when she cast it. Her cheeks lifted and her eyes narrowed. While Alvaro warmed from the inside.

Whatever their troubles, the smile always lifted him.

Even when she was taken from San Benito, gone for several years, the memory of Mama’s smile assured him she would come back.

When she came home, bruised and scarred and quiet, the smile returned once she saw him. And when her cheeks lifted, the pink scars disappeared.

And it remained after they escaped to America, and moved into the small apartment in Chicago.

And even though she was always tired now—too thin, too pale, her once shiny hair falling out—Mama’s smile lifted him even on their worst days at the center.

Like today.

“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered.

She reached into a small plastic bag beneath the cot, then brought her hand out, cupping something within.

“He came by today. The one who is nice to us. I saved it for you.”

She opened her hand to reveal a piece of bread. Thick and fresh.

“No, Mama,” he said, waving his hand. “It’s for you. You need it more than I do.”

She had almost no energy now, so different from when he was little. Then, Mama and he would dance to music, with his cousins and aunts and uncles. They would dive into the pond behind Tia’s home, splash each other and swim around. Mama taught him how to play soccer.

When she returned to San Benito, after being taken, all of that energy was gone. On the trip to America, he overheard others in the group say she might die.  Some energy returned in Chicago. But it was sapped by her work, cleaning rooms of a large hotel. He’d make his own dinner as she went to bed before dark.

Here, outside of occasional cafeteria visits, she lay in the cot all day, sleeping most of the time. Every week nurses came to check on her. They would give Mama water, and different types of medicine. Check her temperature and take her blood. But all of them frowned in the same way. Most spoke no English—they would tell Alvaro what they thought, and he would tell Mama. But what he never told her was that they did not know what was wrong.

One young guard would sneak Mama extra bread every few days. Good bread—not the bread given to prisoners.

But none of the nurses or the medicine or the extra bread was helping.

Mama reached her hand closer to him.

“Alvaro, if you did not have dinner, you must eat. The guard will bring more to me.”

He knew—she would not eat the bread. Not if he was hungry.

So he took it from her hand.

In Chicago, Alvaro ate so fast, Mama would scold him. Teachers too. Friends laughed.

Not at the center.

He ate the first bite slowly.  Chewed and savored it, unsure when his next bites of food would come. Not with the other boys that stole his food, and the guards that did nothing but laugh.

Then he took another bite, letting the bread sit on his tongue for seconds before chewing and swallowing it.

But then, still hungry, he stopped eating. He craved more, but this was not the time.

He put the large piece that remained under his blanket. He’d save it for tomorrow.

Just in case.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the room turned pitch black.

Alvaro lay on his back, closed his eyes, but could not sleep.

And not because he was hungry, nor that the noises of the village still echoed all around. And would for hours more. He and Mama were used to that.

No, it was because of the images racing through his mind.

Mama swimming and dancing.

Now lying in the cot all day.

The nurses frowning.

And Mama smiling when she handed him her piece of bread. A piece of bread she needed far more, but would never eat when her son was hungry.

And every day, he grew ever more hungry.

It would all only get worse.

And that was why he couldn’t sleep.

He was only 12, but he was smart enough to see it clearly. What made Mama happy was helping him, when what she needed was to help herself.

Ever since he could remember, he’d been the cause of her difficulties.

She was on the way to get him from school when the gang took her from San Benito.

Before escaping to America, she had come back for him. He knew now that the journey had been far more difficult because he was with her. Things she had to do with the men who were helping them, all to keep him safe.

They were in this camp because of him. It was all mothers and children. The “family” center, they called it. Maybe the women without children were taken care of in a better place than this.

And now, even when she had fresh bread, she gave it to him when he was hungry. She smiled as she did it, but inside, she only grew more sick. She only stayed in the cot more.

Alvaro was old enough to take care of himself now.

And over the past two weeks, he had learned something. Something his last friend, Manuel, had told him.

Some of the boys had disappeared not because the green buses took them away.

But because they had escaped.

He didn’t tell Mama, but his friend Manuel had escaped.

And because of Manuel, he now knew how to escape.

And so, he decided, he would escape too.

In order to save Mama.

And once he made that decision, he fell quickly to sleep.

* * *

It started with whispers. Yawns. Chatter.

Then it grew louder. Squeaks and scrapes of metal cots against the floor. Cries of young boys and girls. Soothing or scolding voices of their mothers.

One mother sang to her two daughters every morning, three rows over.

The cacophony of the village stirring all at once woke Alvaro before he ever opened his eyes.

Even with the lights on and the noise, he kept them closed for a few seconds longer.

“Tijo….”

He yawned.

“Tijo, you better go get breakfast before the other boys get there first.”

Mama was right. He would need to eat well today. Which meant he needed to beat the older boys to the line.

Alvaro opened his eyes, rose quickly and walked toward the cafeteria. He passed rows of waking children and moms dressing them. Most older boys he saw were still sleeping, or just getting up.

He entered the short hallway that led to the cafeteria. Two guards stood watch at the entrance.

Women and girls and smaller boys stood at the back of the food line, stepping forward quietly. He grabbed a tray and plastic silverware, then joined behind them. A small girl turned to look at him. She smiled up at him and he grinned back.

She looked clean. Fresh. A pink ribbon still clung to her black hair. Definitely a new arrival, maybe on one of yesterday’s buses.

“Ola,” he said.

“Hello,” she replied in perfect English. Better than his. “I’m Maria.”

She politely lifted her hand. He embraced it and shook. Her palm was pudgy and warm.

“Hi there. I’m Alvaro.”

Maria’s mom looked at Alvaro skeptically, then patted her on the back.

“C’mon Maria, let’s get some food.” She had only a trace of an accent.

Maria turned the other way.

He looked over his shoulder to see who entered the cafeteria next.

Several smaller boys entered—brothers, they looked like—followed by their young mother.  Then two more mothers with two little girls.

No threats. Yet.

He reached the first station of the line.

Pieces of bread lay on small napkins.  He grabbed the biggest one he saw. Unlike Mama’s from last night, it was thin and dry. He began eating it so nobody could take it from him. It hardly had any taste at all.

At the next station were bowls of a watery oatmeal. They’d started serving this every morning about a month ago. Like the bread, no taste.  Still, he put a bowl on his tray.

Next came the paper cups of water.  They used to serve milk, but one week of rotten milk had made Alvaro and many others sick, so they now served only water. He took a cup.

Tray in hand, Alvaro followed Maria and her mother to a table that was almost full. A good group. Safe.

Alvaro ate the watery oatmeal like he ate in Chicago.  Quickly.

At the front of the line, the first older boys picked up trays. His heart beat faster.

A finger tapped his shoulder.

“Are you hungry?” Maria asked as she held her cup of water. “You are eating so fast?”

She looked serious, but he couldn’t help but smile back.

“No. I just like to eat fast.”

She nodded, satisfied.

He scooped up more oatmeal and swallowed it.

He overheard Maria’s mother talking to another woman.

“We got caught up in this by mistake,” she said. “We are both U.S. citizens. My husband too. They have us confused for others. I assume they’ll get it straightened out.”

The other woman nodded, no doubt thinking what Alvaro was thinking. They had heard this in recent weeks from new arrivals. People who were swept up by the government and taken to the center by “mistake.” Confident that the government would be able to correct the mistake. The people who said that were still in the camp. Some had already been taken away in the green buses.

Noise at the back of the line caused Alvaro to look over his shoulder again. More large boys arriving. Some were stepping in front of others, leading to jostling and arguing.

Alvaro’s table was now full, which would protect him as long as no one left before the boys got to the end of the line.

Heart racing, he ate faster, slurping the food down.

Another tap on the shoulder.

Maria, frowning.

“I don’t like it. If you are that hungry, you can have mine.”

He first looked at her bowl.  At least half was left, and he wanted to eat as much food as he could.

But then he looked back at her face.  Still healthy. Full of life.

“Maria, it may not taste good, but you need it. You should eat all of it.”

Maria’s mother nodded her approval.

“Thank you young man.”

“Of course,” he said, then started eating again.

The bigger boys neared the end of the line. Six of them now, talking loudly. They each had bowls on their trays. But with the smaller portions of late, the larger boys would still grab other kids’ food.

The woman sitting on the other side of Maria’s mother stood up, and her two children followed her. The shield of a full table was now gone.

Alvaro lifted the plastic bowl to his lips and swallowed the last of the oatmeal.

“Young man, I’m not going to eat this bread, and you look hungry.” Now it was Maria’s mother talking. “You can have mine.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Thank you.”

She handed him the piece of stale bread. He held it to up his mouth for a moment, but didn’t eat it. While he pretended to chew, he slipped it into his pocket.

It would taste better later.

Which gave him an idea. New arrivals like Maria’s mother wouldn’t like the bread here. And new arrivals were usually the first to come to breakfast. So maybe there would be more bread to grab.

Alvaro walked over to the gray plastic garbage can in the far corner of the cafeteria. When he looked down, several crusts of bread were already scattered amid discarded bowls and silverware. He tossed his plastic bowl in, then grabbed several crusts.

For the next ten minutes, he took more crusts and stuffed them in his pockets. Then he walked back to the doorway entering the cafeteria.

Maria and her mother had left the table. Older boys now sat in five of the seats..

* * *

Back at Mama’s cot, Alvaro knew he had less than one hour.

He talked to her as much as he could.

Not only to hear her voice, not knowing when he would hear it next.

But because he needed to learn things they’d never talked about before. So he could find her later. So she would know where to go. Once he left, she would understand why he had discussed these things.

“Mama, I remember San Benito so well. Maybe we will go there when we leave here.”

She frowned.

“Tio, it is not a safe place for us. And Tita is no longer there.”

Tita, Alvaro’s grandmother, died shortly after they’d arrived in America. They’d held a short memorial service in their Chicago apartment. Even the day the government took them, Tita’s framed photo sat on a small table, with a candle burning in front of it. The last thing Mama did before they were taken away was blow the candle out.

“I know. But it is our only home now. And it is small.”

He knew other cities, large like Chicago, would be too big to find one another. If she went to a big city, he would never find her again.

“Yes it is. But remember, it’s not safe. That is where I was taken from. They may take me again.”

Alvaro’s stomach knotted. She never talked about being taken, or what happened in the two years when she was gone. What caused those scars, and her silence. What had changed forever the look in her eyes.

“Ok. We will find another small town to go to. Have you thought of one?”

“Alvaro, why are you asking me this?”

“I want to get past this place and know where we will be.”

She smiled at him.

“I like that.” She looked up, and around. “Do you know where I would go if I could?”

Exactly the conversation he wanted to have.

“Where?”

“A town you would love…”

“Where?”

“I played there as a girl. My abuela would take me there. It’s where I learned to swim. Where I played soccer on the beach.”

He waited.

“It’s called Montericco.”

He hadn’t heard the name before. He’d only seen beaches as part of their escape to America. And he’d only played at a beach in Chicago.

“Is it small?” he asked.

“Yes, smaller than San Benito. Not far from Guatemala City.”

“And the name again?”

“Montericco.”

Montericco. Montericco. Montericco.

He drilled the name into his head.

“Montericco,” he repeated. “That sounds like the perfect place for us to go.”

Mama cocked her head.

“Tio, why are you talking this way?”

Even sick, Mama saw through him.

“I am tired of only thinking about food and sun and rats. Running from the bullies and afraid of the tents. And not knowing what’s next for us. So now I know—when we leave here, and are sent away, we will go to Montericco.”

It worked. She smiled widely.

He narrowed his eyes, and took it all in. Her chapped lips, raised cheeks, squinted eyes. This would be the memory that would keep him going until Montericco.

“Ok, Alvaro. Montericco it is!”

* * *

The black buses arrived at the same time every morning.  About 30 minutes after the cafeteria closed, and shortly after guards opened the center’s doors to go outside.

All but the sick were required to go outside by ten, but you could go outside earlier—when the doors first opened—if you wanted. Many did, to escape the noise and the stench, and to enjoy the coolest part of the day.

“The best time is when the buses arrive,” Manuel had whispered last week as they watched black buses enter the camp. Their conversation came after Manuel had been sent to the tents for one week. He looked so thin. His eyes so tired. Alvaro remembered every word.

“The guards are helping with the new arrivals. Between the buses and the tents, they don’t have enough people to watch every part of the center at the time many buses arrive.”

Manuel had then pointed to a section of the fence—past the back side of the building, next to one lightpost—where the bottom had come loose from the dry soil beneath.  That allowed the fence to be pushed up, creating enough space that a smaller-sized boy could squeeze underneath.

When Manuel disappeared the next day, yet his mother still remained, Alvaro knew it had worked. And the last time Alvaro had seen Manuel was at breakfast. He’d left when the buses had arrived.

Taking even a small plastic bag outside would draw attention—of either guards, or larger boys. So after Mama fell back asleep, Alvaro put his second shirt on over his first. He also pulled a second layer of socks over those he already wore, and put on his other pair of shorts over the shorts he had on. The outer shorts also hid the bread crusts in his pockets, and Mama’s piece of bread below them.

As they did every morning, groups of two guards approached the doors that opened up to the outside. Alvaro kissed Mama on the forehead, stared at her face for a few seconds more, then walked to the nearest door.

Others moved toward the door as well.

Two guards, a man and woman, stopped at the doors and turned to face the growing group. Alvaro stood about 10 people deep in the group, not wanting to stand out.

A large hand gripped the back of his left shoulder.

He whirled around to see one of the bullies from yesterday evening. The boy, inches taller than Alvaro and far heavier—the fresh look of a new arrival—grabbed the outer T-shirt and pulled it upward.

“Little man, why dressed so warm when it’s going to be 100 degrees today?” he asked, laughing.

Alvaro could barely breathe. They were within earshot of the guards, and the boy was talking loudly.

“Um, I was cold in here this morning. I’ll take it off when I warm up outside.”

The boy turned to another boy behind him. Alvaro recognized him too—the one who had pushed him to the ground after they’d taken his food. Same height as the other boy, but much skinnier. Dirty from his hair to his fingernails. Like many who had already slept in the tents, he had large red sores all over his arms and legs.

“Look, little man has two T-shirts on.”

The other boy laughed along, eyeing Alvaro up and down.

“Thick in the shorts too,” he said. “I think our friend is up to something.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. They were going to give him away. He was tempted to run back into the room’s center, but that too would stick out.

“I’m cold—“

“—and don’t tell us you’re cold.”

Alvaro racked his brain. Then remembered the bread. If they’d wanted food last night, maybe they wanted more now.

“Please leave me alone,” he said, reaching into his pockets. “I will give you bread if you will just leave me alone.”

The second boy’s eyes lit up. He’d been at the center much longer than the first.

“How much?”

“One handful each. From just this morning.”

They nodded.

It was a painful tradeoff, but the two were about to get him in trouble.

He curled his fingers up, grabbing crusts in each hand, but making sure some remained below his fingers—most important, the fresh piece from Mama, which was buried the deepest. He lifted both hands out, and passed the crusts off to each boy.

The larger boy shoved him again, nearly knocking him down.

“There are more. Give them all or we tell the guards you have two sets of clothes on.”

Alvaro exhaled. He had no choice. He reached for the remaining crusts and handed them over.

He began to lift Mama’s piece too, but a long squeak pierced the air. The guards were opening the doors. Light from the morning sun exploded into the room.

The group, now in the dozens, jostled forward. Alvaro pushed with them, stepping a few feet to his right to get away from the boys, then past the guards and out the door.

The summer heat hit his face, and he squinted from the sun’s glare. As the crowd fanned out across the paved grounds, he stayed close to several families that were huddled together.  One woman looked at him skeptically, but said nothing.

Two minutes later, in the far distance, the first plume of dust kicked up. One bus, far away. Three guards began to walk toward the entrance to the camp. Only three—not enough.

Alvaro paced to his right, purposely avoiding staring at the buses and the guards.

Two more sets of doors opened, more groups of prisoners flooding outside. Small boys sprinted to the areas shaded by the building’s walls, seeking moments in the cool air before others pushed them out.

Then Alvaro saw what he’d hoped to see. Guards followed the new groups out, then walked toward the entrance.  Alvaro turned back toward the fence.

Two more clouds of dust appeared in the distance. Then came a fourth dust cloud. Followed by a fifth.

Alvaro let out a long breath. Five buses would be enough.

It was time.

He walked toward the shaded area, then along the wall of the building. Several smaller kids looked up at him, worried he was there to push them away. But he smiled, signaling he was not a threat.

He stopped to look back towards the fence. The black rectangular shapes of the buses now headed from right to left across the desert. Then the rectangles became squares as the buses turned toward the center.

A large group of guards now waited where the gate would open.

Alvaro walked faster along the side of the building, his path still obscured in the shadows.

Brakes squealed as the first bus stopped at the gate. Then came the slow click-clack of a chain as a portion of the fence moved sideways to open the bus entrance. Just before reaching the far corner of the building, Alvaro looked back to see the first bus enter the grounds.

Thump!

Something collided with his ankle and he fell to the ground, thrusting his hands forward to keep his head from crashing against the concrete surface. Trickles of bloods seeped out of the corner of each palm, but Alvaro’s surging adrenaline stifled any pain.

“You escaping now?” he heard from above.

He looked up to see the larger boy from before leaning over him. His skinny friend stood next to him.

Alvaro pushed himself up with his hands. He looked down to assess the damage. His left knee was bleeding, and his other wounds now stung as if someone had poured alcohol on them. Mama’s piece of bread was protruding from the top of his pocket.

Inches from the larger boy’s face, a flash of anger trumped his fear.

He said one word: “Si.”

The boy stepped back, then gestured both hands in the direction of the fence behind them. He knew about the light pole.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He grinned. “Go on through, and don’t come back. The more food for us.”

Alvaro looked up at him in silence, speechless. It was now clear—he was braver than they were.

He scampered between the two and away from the building.

The lightpole was not too far now. Maybe the length of half a soccer field. But the space between was wide open, and only a few prisoners were walking in the area. He would stick out when he crossed.

All five buses were now parked within the grounds. Passengers were getting off each one, and groups of guards were walking them over to be processed. There were no guards on his side of the camp.

Heart racing, Alvaro walked quickly across the concrete. Once halfway there, he sped up to a jog.

He reached the lightpole.

“On the right side,” Manuel had said. “That’s where boys are squeezing through.”

Alvaro looked around, muscles twitching. He was all alone and fully exposed. No prisoners ever stood this close to the fence. Now he had no choice but to move fast.

A foot from the ground, he wrapped his fingers around the steel wires of the chain link fence.

He pulled. But the fence didn’t budge.

He stepped a foot over. Pulled even harder, using both hands this time. Still no movement.

He clenched his jaw in frustration.

But this was where Manuel had pointed!

Maybe guards had found the escape and fixed it.

He sidestepped another foot. He pulled so hard the chain-link wire sliced into the skin of his fingers. Still nothing.

An engine revved up behind him. One of the buses was done offloading and was already driving away. Sweat fell into his eyes as his stomach tightened. Soon guards would walk back in his direction

He moved one more foot to his right. He grabbed the chain link wires as tightly as he could, then leaned back so his entire weight pulled against the fence. His fingers bled more.

And it moved.

The bottom of the fence slipped up and away from the surface, almost causing Alvaro to fall backward.

The engine of a second bus revved up. Alvaro looked back to see that it too was turning around to leave. Time was running out.

He lay down next to the fence, flat on his back. Using his left arm, he again lifted the bottom of the fence, pulling it up and over his head, then holding it there as he slid his body under the opening.

It was a tight fit. So tight the sharp edges of the fence’s bottom pierced both legs as he slipped them under. He stifled a scream.

Once through, he let the fence go and it sprung back into place, tight against the ground. No hole to be seen.

Alvaro’s blood was pulsing now. Every sense heightened.

He was free—on the other side of the fence for the first time since becoming a prisoner months ago.

Buses three and four now circled to leave.

Alvaro turned away from the center and toward the desert. A warm wind heated his face, dust flying into his eyes.

Manuel never told him what the boys did after escaping under the fence. And there were no footprints in the wind-blown dirt to guide him.

So Alvaro did the only thing left to do.

Despite the wind, and the dust, and the sun.

Despite the cuts to this hands. His knees. His legs.

He ran as fast as he could. Toward some rocks and bushes that would get him out of the open.

Amid his heavy huffs, he repeated the same word again and again, so he’d never forget it.

“Montericco. Montericco. Montericco.”

That’s where he’d see Mama smile again.

Capitol Monthly

“Jake Caldwell”

by Randy Stegman

WEST TEXAS

“Another runner two days ago.”

Jake Caldwell dreaded every morning roll call speech.

It was already obvious that the wheels were coming off the place. Hell, the wheels were rolling halfway across the desert by now, hubcaps spinning off in every direction.

So Sergeant Waters’ angry rants provided a needless reminder of how fucked up things were.

The short, stout sergeant with the shaved head and the high voice was no more than five years older than Jake and his fellow reservists.  And he was younger than most of the private contractors who kept rotating through. But Sarge talked to them all like they were wayward teenagers.

“Another. Fucking. Kid!”

And now he was yelling at the top of his lungs.

One of the newer contractors shuddered in front of Jake. But no one else budged. They got yelled at every morning. They were used to it.

“And do you know how I know?” Sarge asked, his face pinkish-red under his brown, bushy eyebrows.

No one answered.

“I know because the kid was caught stealing from a grocery store in Pecos. That’s right, I got another call from another sheriff asking what the fuck we were doing letting so many kids walk away from this place and right into their towns.”

Sarge paced back and forth in the front of the room. While the immense, old prison stood at the center of the deportation camp, the guards met in a rickety, pre-fabricated structure they called the “RV.”  They entered every morning for roll call and to hear their pre-shift orders, stopped back in for two meal breaks, then one last time to sign out at day’s end.

“And do you know what I had to tell him?” Sarge asked, raising his hands to his sides.

“I had to tell him I had no fucking clue.”

Back in school, this is when Jake would’ve blurted out something landing him in detention.

But now, he didn’t utter a word. He restrained from even shaking his head. Because what he wanted to say was simple:

Well, I have a fucking clue.

It was really fucking obvious why the place was falling apart.

From day one, they were deluged by numbers they couldn’t come close to handling. And every day that went by—with busload after busload dropping off more women and children—made it worse.

They didn’t have enough room.

They didn’t have enough guards. Or staff. Or nurses.

They didn’t have enough food, or medicine. Hell, they didn’t even have sunscreen or toothpaste.

They didn’t have enough cots. Not even enough tents, as inhumane as they were.

Before the first prisoners arrived, there had been talk of rudimentary classes for kids, organized activities for the women, and regular health checks. Planning for the first week, they’d been given strict schedules to follow to keep prisoners active, productive and engaged.

But once the first wave of buses dumped more than a thousand people in their hands, all that was scrapped.

The fallback plan was more rudimentary: Lights on. A meal. Doors open to let prisoners outside and crews disinfect the cavernous space. Doors close late in the day. Meal. Lights off.

That was it.

That bare-bones routine led to a general aimlessness at first, but at least there was a semblance of order. Basic decorum and humanity.

Within a week, it fell into chaos, then danger.

Prisoners fought all the time. At least one stabbing every few weeks.

Guards fought too, largely the contractors.

Women and kids grew dangerously sick from the most basic illnesses. Ostracized for fear of infection. Some died.

As the camp’s population soared, new complications emerged.

Adding the outdoor tent rotations triggered a new nightmare. The health of women or boys stuck in them plummeted in just days, but Sarge didn’t want to hear about what was so obvious to every guard. As the ever growing tent zone became the center’s purgatory, tension grew whenever big waves of prisoners arrived, guaranteeing that more would be pushed outside.

In early May, a COVID outbreak forced them to move 6 kids and 8 women out of the camp. Two of those women died. Flu and measles outbreaks hit both prisoners and guards. Kids were getting all sorts of rashes and sores, worrying guards that they might bring them home to their families.

And that was one the lesser worries with the guards. To keep up with the demand, contractors started showing up to roll call. While older, they lacked the training of reservists like Jake, and most of them patrolled the place scared. Many took their fear out on the prisoners, thinking that hostility and violence would shield them. Which meant Jake and his fellow reservists had to police the contractors almost as much as the actual prisoners.

The onset of oppressive heat in the late spring and summer months added a new layer of hell.

And amid a late May surge of arrivals, dozens of mothers screamed at the guards that they were there by mistake. They were American citizens, they insisted, swept up by profiling and bureaucratic snafus. Enough of them told the same story, Jake soon believed them. If you’re deporting 15 million people with no due process, the government’s gonna fuck up sometimes, right? But when he asked Sarge about it in a Friday roll call, he was told here was no way to confirm their status or send them back. “Forget it. If they’re getting off a black bus, there was no mistake.”

Finally, in recent weeks, another problem emerged. The focus of Sarge’s morning tirade.

Kids were escaping.

Things were that bad, Jake explained to his live-in girlfriend, Mary Beth.

So bad that boys as young as eight were leaving their own mothers to escape the hell of the camp.  And so bad, boys that young were able to actually get away. They weren’t doing it at night, either. Most were inside after dark, unable to get out, and the tent zone was sealed off and observed closely. These boys were walking away in broad daylight.

So yes, Jake thought as Sarge carried on, I’ve got a fucking clue.

The cause of the escalating nightmare was crystal clear.  The sheer number of women and children at the camp overwhelmed any capacity to handle them. And that created an environment that stripped the humanity away from every single person trapped there—women, children and the guards themselves.

Which was exactly why a desperate kid dared escape the camp and was caught stealing in little Pecos, Texas. Hell, Jake himself would have run long ago.

“You got something you want to say, private?”

Jake heard the question, but was looking down. He was still answering that sheriff’s question in his mind.

The worst part of the mess was that this was just a single camp in West Texas.

Camp #405.

Or as the guards joked privately: Camp MacGyver. A last-ditch attempt by a federal contractor to convert a long-shuttered low-security prison into a holding center for thousands of women and children before they were deposited on the other side of the border. And when that wasn’t enough, a rushed effort to add enough tents to house the overflow, even if it meant they roasted in the Texas sun.

Just this one camp, Jake kept thinking. Overrun by thousands of people in its first week.

Which told him that the true answer to the pissed-off sheriff’s question was far bigger.

It turned out, mass deporting 15 million people in a matter of months—when the entire nation’s prison population was a little more than 1 million—was a batshit crazy idea.

It meant there were hundreds more inhumane shitshows just like this camp across the country. Cots and tents and buses. Cruel guards, sick mothers and fleeing children. Death itself. Fittingly, many of these hellholes had actually been set up on the grounds of old Japanese internment camps from World War.

But mass deportation also created all sorts of other shitshows along the way.  The papers hardly talked about the camps because the government kept them walled off from view. But the government couldn’t hide the reality that wiping millions out of the American workforce had dropped a bomb on America’s economy. Businesses and entire industries were shutting down as a result, leading to a surge in unemployment. Shortages of food, goods and services, combined with higher prices, were upending main streets across America. Hell, Mary Beth had lost her job in April as a result of her restaurant closing down.

Sarge’s smallish boot suddenly appeared in front of Jake’s chair.

“You got something you want to say, Private Caldwell?”

Jake looked up. Sarge’s round face, frozen in a half-snarl, stared back from only a foot away.

“No, sir.”

“Nothing?” Sarge asked. “That scowl sure made it look like you got something to say."

Jake sat up straighter, rolling his broad shoulders back. In another setting, he’d knock this asshole to the floor with a single uppercut. His 6’2 muscular frame and years of boxing meant that little shit wouldn’t be getting up, either.

“One thing, actually.  We need to get to the bottom of why these prisoners are escaping, sir.”

Sarge took a step back.

“Damn right we do.”

He looked around the room, then back Jake’s way.

“Private, I’m going to put you in charge of that mission. And you can pick one other person from this unit to help you get to the bottom of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Jake said.

“You don’t sound too happy about the assignment, Caldwell.”

Jake sat up even straighter, then rubbed his hand over his high and tight crew cut.

“We will get to the bottom of it sir. We will figure out why anyone would want to leave this place, how they are doing it, and put a stop to it.”

His sarcastic tone would’ve guaranteed detention back in school.

Sarge’s already narrow eyes closed to mere slits. He stared Jake down for seconds.

Then clapped his hands together.

“Well get to it. The rest of you stick to your usual duties.”

* * *

“Jake, you need to work on your poker face,” Donny Peebles said as they both walked out of the “RV” together.

“Don’t I know it,” Jake laughed. “And I was trying my best, too. And congratulations—now we both get to do a shitty assignment because of my poor acting.”

And it was a shitty assignment. Prowling outside in the punishing heat, chasing down broken kids understandably running from this nightmare. Just as bad, the assignment would take him away from what he enjoyed most about a job he never signed up for.

After observing comings and goings in the cafeteria over breakfast, Jake and Donny walked to two double doors. At nine-thirty on the nose, they held them open as women and children walked outside.

Minutes later, six buses entered the grounds. They approached the second bus and lined up the new families who exited.

“It’s like night and day,” Donny said as they walked past several dozen prisoners in a double-file line. “They come in looking like real human beings. Then they leave looking like zombies.”

“Leave?” Jake said, although not returning Donny’s grin. “They look like zombies by the next week!”

“True,” Donny said. “Almost as quick as the contract guards they keep parachuting in.”

Jake laughed at that one.

They led the prisoners to the entrance of the processing shack, then returned to the sixth bus and led that group in. They then walked back to the fence, several feet to the right of where the buses came and left.

“Let’s check out the perimeter to find where they’re escaping,” Jake said. “Look for kids’ tracks on the other side, and for places where the fence is loose enough for a kid to crawl underneath.”

Jake walked right while Donny went left.  A stiff breeze blew both warm desert air and dust into his face. He donned sunglasses to shield his eyes, but the wind also meant one other thing. Any footprints of boys escaping would have disappeared.

So Jake simply focused on identifying any weak spots in the fence. He knelt down, tugged hard against the bottom, took a few steps forward, then tugged again.

Why so many boys were escaping became obvious in minutes.  Every twenty feet or so, the bottom of the chain-link fence would pull loose. Usually, loose enough that even a large boy could fit underneath. Probably most of the moms too.

Treading forward under the punishing sun, he counted up the loose sections he found. He stopped once he reached 15.

Looking back, he could see Donny doing the same thing. Walking, pulling, stopping.  Walking, pulling, stopping. And every twenty feet or so, Donny pulled the fence at least inches from the ground.

Jake jogged toward Donny across the hot pavement, then whistled loudly.

Donny walked toward him, smirking.

“Well, it looks like MacGyver forgot an important detail when he re-opened this place.”

Jake smiled back. “Right! You’d think a secure fence would’ve been step one.”

“That and a working urinal at the ‘RV’!” Donny said. “They’re going to have to replace the whole damn thing.”

* * *

Jake briefed Sergeant Waters after scarfing down his daily BLT sandwich and chips.

“Fine, we’ll put the order in,” Sarge said. “But beginning tomorrow, I want you two watching that fence line like hawks. No more escapes.”

“But what if it’s a big bus day?”

“Forget the buses. I’m bringing in more contractors. You watch that fence.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But for the rest of the day, return to your normal duties.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he stood up, Jake plunged his hands into the pockets of his pale olive green pants.  He had three pairs of them, and wore one of them every day.

For one reason.

As he ate his own lunch, their deep, baggy pockets enabled him to sneak large slices of bread into them, below the table. Even better, when he stood up with his hands in his pockets, no one noticed the bread. And the pants’ large back pockets allowed him to take at least two more pieces.

With lunch done and his bounty in hand, he walked over to the old prison. Alone.

The building looked even more cavernous during the day, with hundreds of cots sitting empty. Beyond the cleaning crew trying to tamp down the stench and nurses making the rounds, the only people who remained were women too sick to step outside, if they could walk at all. And that number had grown through May and early June.

Reaching the entrance, Jake took a deep breath and scanned the room, making sure his path was clear.

It reminded him of his old paper route in Abilene. A house here. A house two doors down. Then a house across the street.  Then over to a different street.

But here, it was a route of cots. And instead of delivering the Abilene Reporter News, he was delivering pilfered, fresh bread to sick women.

He walked four different routes—two each day. To keep things simple, the routes only varied as women came and went.  When one woman was hauled away on a green bus, he’d find another to replace her.

“Route 2” was up today.

He walked six rows into the sea of cots, then turned right. The first woman on Route 2 looked his way.

Like her, the women along his route knew the schedule.  They smiled up at him as he appeared twenty or so feet away, then looked away as he approached. No one on his routes wanted to be the reason he got caught—getting fresh bread every other day was too valuable.

He dropped a piece of bread onto the first woman’s cot. She mouthed the words “thank you,” as they always did.  Some said “gracias.” But she didn’t look at him as she said it, just as he didn’t look down as he dropped bread. He ambled straight, turned another corner and made his way to the next cot along Route 2. Then the next.

From a distance, it looked like he was making rounds any guard would make. But as Mary Beth told him each night, he was playing their Robin Hood.

In the camp’s first month, another pattern emerged. As families were shipped out, those who remained moved from more centrally located spots towards the room’s corners. While the smells were just as bad and the noise just as loud, the corners felt more private.

So how close a cot was to a corner also indicated which women had been in the camp the longest—and who Jake had helped the longest. And it was for them that he saved the largest pieces of bread.

The last stop of Route 2 was in the room’s far-left corner. The woman there appeared to be struggling more than anyone on his four routes.  He would occasionally ask the nurses what ailed her. None knew.

His heart broke whenever he approached her cot. She usually was lying down, but with her eyes open. Clearly awaiting his arrival and not wanting to miss the delivery. Her hair—a mix of black and gray—was thin, and falling out. Tangled strands usually lay on the blanket. Her face was gaunt and a yellowish-pale. Her high cheekbones jutted out, as did her Adam’s Apple. Most prominently, long scars crossed diagonally down each cheek. Another appeared just below her chin. And a fourth cut through part of her neck, dangerously close to her carotid artery.

He guessed that, like a good number of the women here, she’d been in the country on a T-visa.  Reserved for victims of human trafficking, or victims of other crimes, but now eliminated as part of the nation’s new mass deportation policy. So even women like her—having been saved from hell by the United States—were being sent right back to the danger they’d escaped.

“Victimization should not be an invitation to being in our country,” the talking heads repeated on television.

“I wish they could see the faces of the victims they’re kicking out,” Jake often said to Mary Beth.

Jake approached the last woman on Route 2—his longest-standing customer. She raised her head and looked over.

He reached into his pocket.  Because of her condition and how long he’d served her, he always saved her the biggest and thickest piece.

He dropped it on her blanket.

Unlike the others, she didn’t say thank you in either language. Instead, she smiled. She always smiled.

And as it lifted her cheeks in a way that hid her scars, and narrowed her eyes into upside down crescents, her smile was as beautiful as any he’d ever seen.

He nodded and walked away.

* * *

Sergeant Waters was more subdued the next morning.

No angry sheriffs had called. No escapees reported. And the entire fence would be secured the following week, including with new layers of barbed wire.

“In the meantime,” he said, looking at Jake and Donny, “no one gets out.”

Rather than going to the prison doors, or to the buses, Jake and Donny headed to the center’s vehicle depot. Ten minutes later, they drove out on ultra terrain vehicles. Even though they’d be stuck outside, the camouflaged UTVs reminded Jake of the ATVs he’d raced as a kid.  Maybe this assignment would be a nice change of pace after all.

They drove through the side exit of the perimeter fence and looked back, observing the scenes they usually participated in. The old prison’s doors opened, and lines of women and children flowed outside. Five black buses appeared in the distance, snaking their way toward the camp. Guards walked to the entrance.

“Let’s head to the far side,” Jake yelled over the breeze. No one would try to escape near the front entrance with all those guards there.

Donny gave him a thumbs up. Helmet and goggles on, they sped around the outside of the fence. Even with a helmet on, the flying dust stung Jake’s cheeks.

Jake came to a stop at a far corner of the fence line, Donny pulling up next to him.

“If they’re gonna run, it would be back here while all of us are looking the other way.”

Donny nodded.

Some bushes and boulders appeared in the distance.

“I say we split up, but close enough to see each other. Post up behind some bushes or rocks, and wait to see if a kid crawls under. I’ll head off to the far right, you go straight.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They separated, speeding off at an angle away from one another.

Jake stopped after about a quarter mile, hiding the UTV behind a clump of large prickly pears. In the distance, Donny pulled up behind a small rock formation and ducked down.

Jake lowered himself to the ground and waited.

For minutes, nothing stuck out. The first bus entered the camp, then the second. Groups of guards led one group of new detainees to the processing center, then headed back to guide the next.

It was when the third bus entered that he first saw movement at the far left corner of the old prison building.

A small figure emerged from behind the building. Alone. Moving in Jake’s direction.

The figure walked skittishly, his head spinning like an owl as he looked around. Once in the wide open, he jogged to the fence.

Jake’s heart raced. An escape right before their eyes.

Like Jake the day before, the boy began tugging at the fence, testing for openings. He  sidestepped a few feet and tried again, while looking back at the buses. After the fourth or fifth tug, the boy lay down. He must’ve found a loose spot. He pulled the fence hard, and it bent upward. It was a tight fit, but he pulled himself under and through, and stood up on the other side. Made it look easy.

The boy looked around for a moment, then sprinted directly in Donny’s direction.

Hidden from the boy but in Donny’s line of sight, Jake waved his hands in the air, then pointed.  Donny returned two thumbs up. They remained down as the boy sprinted across the flat, dry surface of the West Texas desert.

Two minutes later, the boy drew even with Donny, passing about 30 feet to the right of the boulders shielding him.

That’s when Jake hopped on his UTV and sped Donny’s way. Donny followed suit.

Hearing the sound of Donny’s engine, the boy looked over his shoulder, but kept running. Larger clumps of prickly pear lay 50 feet in front of him, surrounded by more clusters of rocks and boulders. He was clearly looking for cover.

With Donny chasing from behind, Jake bee-lined it to the other side of the rocks. A minute later, he came to a stop, huffing from the rush of the chase.

Then he waited. Any second now, the boy would appear, Donny right behind him.

Seconds passed, but the boy didn’t emerge. And beyond the breeze blowing past his ears, it was quiet. Donny’s engine was off.

Then, above the breeze, came a scream.

“Fuck!!!”

A high-pitched shriek of pain followed.

Not a boy’s voice. But Donny’s.

Jake jumped back on his vehicle and drove around the boulders. Four thick, black tires faced the sky, two of them spinning.  The UTV was flipped upside down, pinning the lower part of Donny’s body underneath. And a skinny boy, looking about 10 or so, was pushing against the UTV.

Donny screamed out again.

Jake pulled to within feet of the overturned UTV.

“This little punk broke my leg,” he yelled. “The bone is sticking out of my fucking ankle.”

The boy looked at Jake, clearly unsure if he should run or stay.

Jake ran up to the UTV, leaned his shoulder against it, and started pushing. The kid watched.

“Help me,” he yelled to the boy.  “We need to get this off him.”

“Ok,” the boy said.

He lined up next to Jake, and pushed too.

The UTV moved a few inches, but that was it.

Donny screamed again.

Jake ducked lower to gain more leverage.

“Push harder,” he yelled, powering up through his legs. He and the boy groaned together. The UTV inched upward.

Jake leaned in to hold it there.

“That’s all we’re gonna get, Donny! Crawl out! Now!”

With a grunt, Donny pulled himself out from under the UTV and past Jake. He flopped over, flat onto his back, crying out.

Jake and the boy jumped away and the UTV crashed to the ground.

“Thank you,” he said to the boy.

The boy stepped back. He put his hands in the air to show they were empty. Both his palms and his knees were badly scraped. Dust covered the lower half of his face. He must’ve fallen as he ran, somehow triggering Donny’s crash.

The boy eyed Jake, again weighing whether to run. His weight shifted side to side.

But then he looked down. To his right. Something lay on the ground.

Jake looked to see what it was.

It was hard to make out at first, but then he figured it out.

A piece of bread.

But not one of the scrawny pieces from the cafeteria.  No, it was one of the pieces from the “RV.” One of the pieces from his route.

It still looked fresh, and was a big piece too. The size he saved up for the corners. The women who’d been there the longest.

“What the fuck are you doing, Caldwell? Grab that little punk. He broke my fucking leg.”

Jake did a double take as he looked at the boy. He resembled the woman in the far left corner of Route 2. The scarred woman with the smile—the one he’d helped the longest. The kid’s eyes looked exactly like her’s.

And Jake had given her a big piece yesterday afternoon.

“Hold on,” Jake yelled out to Donny, as he did a quick calculus.

The chances that this boy would actually escape capture overall were small. He may not even make it out of the desert alive.

But now that his escape had broken Donny’s leg, there’d be hell to pay back in camp. No doubt sent to a tent, if not a far harsher detention center somewhere else. Charged with an actual crime and separated from his mother either way. And once they connected him back to his mother, her fate would go downhill as well. Sarge insisted that families be punished together.

The other factor in his calculus was that the boy was carrying a piece of Jake’s bread with him. This risked ending Jake’s routes, his favorite part of an awful job. But that’s not what really weighed on him. What did was that as ill as she was, his mother wanted her son to have it.

And that settled it. Her wish would be respected.

He glanced at the bread, nodded, and winked. He mouthed the word—in both languages—in a way only the boy could see.

“Vete.”

“Go.”

The boy looked at him quizzically.

He mouthed it again. “Vete.”

The boy crouched down, grabbed the piece of bread and sprinted the other way.

“Stop him!” Donny yelled out. “Get him!”

Jake turned toward Donny and grimaced at the site of the sharp end of white bone sticking out of Donny’s bleeding ankle.

“I’m more worried about your leg right now than some kid.  Someone will him pick him up.”

Donny shrieked out in pain again.

Someone’ll probably pick him up, Jake thought to himself, pulling his phone out of his pocket to call for help.

But it’s not gonna be me. Not Robin Hood.

And if he got sent to detention for bringing a trace of humanity to this entire fucking catastrophe, so be it.

Author’s Note: Trump, Project 2025 and Mass Deportation

Amid a brutal combination of anti-immigration measures wrapped in dangerous rhetoric about “poisoning of blood,” one of the clearest commitments being made by Donald Trump are sweeping raids and a mass deportation program—the largest in history, he says in his stump speech.

The only thing that changes is just how many people he plans to deport. Trump told Time Magazine the number was between 15 and 20 million, and he points to the infamous “Operation Wetback” from the 1950s as his model. He also is explicit that he would assign the National Guard and/or the military to accomplish the deportation.

At the same time, Project 2025 pushes a wide range of anti-immigration policies that dovetail with Trump’s plan, including that the US should “[e]liminate T and U visas,” the visas that protect victims of human trafficking as well as crime within the United States. The plan says: “Victimization should not be a basis for an immigration benefit….Pending elimination of the T and U visas, the Secretary should significantly restrict eligibility for each visa to prevent fraud.” (Page 141)

Project 2025 also calls for ending policies that ensure minimal safeguards for detention camps (including the conditions for children), and calls for “authority for low-level temporary capacity (for example, tents) once permanent space is full. (Page 151). Tents are currently not permitted.

In a lengthy New York Times article,  Trump and his leading advisers on immigration, including Stephen Miller, explained details of their plan:

“[Trump] plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year….To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.

…Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized….

“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — “Operation Wetback.”

Trump advisers’ vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector.

[B]ecause of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown to other countries.

[Stephen] Miller said the new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border.”

He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security….

Such camps could also enable the government to speed up the pace and volume of deportations of undocumented people who have lived in the United States for years and so are not subject to fast-track removal. If pursuing a long-shot effort to win permission to remain in the country would mean staying locked up in the interim, some may give up and voluntarily accept removal without going through the full process….

“[S]tate National Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration control efforts.”

Immigration experts warn that together, these policies, their scale and justification, risk returning to some of the darkest days in American history:

Here’s an expert in Newsweek: “Trump's advisors have already laid out plans to loosen migrant detention standards to enable the creation of sprawling detention camps in a haunting reimagining of the WWII internment camps that held Japanese Americans.”

And Scientific American: “Unleashed on anything close to the scale under discussion, the project Trump and his henchmen are proposing will be lethal to the targeted groups, catastrophic to the stability of the country and extremely difficult to undo.”

For a detailed look at all the Project 2025 proposals on immigration, go HERE and HERE.