The NYT continues to paint Trump’s abnormal plans as normal

Let’s be clear. Donald Trump’s proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is not a solution to America’s tight housing market.

Yet the New York Times, in another infamous attempt to normalize the abnormal, has published an inane head-to-head essay that compares the housing plan proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris with Trump’s deportation plan.

It’s difficult to attempt a critique with a straight face, but Margaret Sullivan has done just that in her Substack newsletter, American Crisis.

The Harris plan for expanding the low-income housing tax credit is a good step for expanding supply. This proposal is unlikely to move through Congress unless Democrats take back the House and retain control of the Senate.

The $25,000 assistance for first time borrowers is more problematic. Which first-time borrowers? Is it a loan or a grant? How will it prevent an increase in demand that pushes up prices where supply is tight?

Where are the data showing that the housing shortage is due to undocumented immigrants? Hint: it’s AWOL because it’s not a factor.

Trump says he plans to deport 15-20 million people; in 2021, the estimate was only about 10.5 million undocumented people. This essay swept details under the rug. They didn’t even include the false scale, although the paper has reported “what it would take” to deport that many people.

Undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for years have legal protection and the right to due process.

Those who have entered the country unlawfully in recent years have been processed at the border and then released with orders to appear in court for deportation hearings. While their cases are winding through the immigration court, which typically takes several more years, they have the right to remain in the United States.

“Trump would need to triple the size of the immigration court to achieve anywhere near the numbers he is talking about,” said Mr. Sandweg. “Even then, he would need funding to build new courthouses, hire support staff and train judges.”

[…]

During the Trump administration, there were some 936,000 deportations, according to official data. As of February, about 340,000 people had been removed by the Biden administration.

To identify and arrest millions of people in the interior of the country would require tens of thousands more immigration agents, said Ms. Napolitano.

[…]

Some one million immigrants with final removal orders living in the country could be a targeted group.
“Let’s say you find these people. You then have to detain them,” said Mr. Neifach. “How are you going to expand detention in a way that won’t blow the bank?”

Every potential deportee is held in a detention facility, and in the current fiscal year, Congress funded the detention of 41,500 immigrants daily at a cost of $3.4 billion, which would need to increase exponentially.

[…]

The ICE budget for transportation and deportation in fiscal 2023 was $420 million, and the agency deported 142,580 people that year.

You cannot just wag your tongue and wave your hands and magically deport millions of people.

The headline implies the criticism from economists was equal; it wasn’t. It implied the proposals are equivalent; they are not.

Once again, the NYT has trafficked in journalistic malpractice in the form of false equivalence.

SMH.

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