Trump Allies Were Told to Stop Saying They’ll Put Migrants in ‘Camps’
Donald Trump’s incoming administration brass wants it made clear: The president-elect is not planning to build a brand new network of “camps” to house the myriad undocumented immigrants who Trump has vowed to round up in what he claims will be “the largest deportation” operation in the “history of our country.”
To be sure, Trump’s migrant expulsion program, if he were to follow through with his plans to deport millions, would require massive new camps — something that Trump’s top policy-hand has explicitly told reporters. But openly describing these camps as “camps” invites supremely negative historical comparisons.
Some top Trump advisers get so annoyed when the media refers to his publicly detailed immigration-crackdown plans as including “camps” that they’ve cautioned the president-elect’s allies and surrogates to stop using the word “camps” during the current presidential transition, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” says one close Trump ally. “Apparently some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”
It wasn’t the news media that came up with the term “camps” to describe the plans for Trump’s new, expanded system of detention facilities for holding immigrants awaiting mass deportations — a network of detention centers that he could potentially call on the U.S. military to help build and operate. It was Team Trump that started describing the future that way.
A year ago, Stephen Miller — Trump’s top immigration adviser, who was recently appointed to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy in his new White House — began publicly outlining his and Trump’s grandest nativist vision for rounding up millions for deportation.
At the time, Miller himself was routinely and specifically using the word “camps” to describe what he and his boss wanted the military to build, should they retake power in 2024. “He said it a lot,” says a Trump 2024 official who’s known Miller for years. “If you know Stephen, you know why he didn’t have a problem with it.”
And according to one New York Times story late last year, “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. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.”
Miller wasn’t an official member of the 2024 Trump presidential campaign, though the campaign itself recommended the newspaper speak to Miller for its story on Trump’s immigration plans if he were to win back the presidency.
And yet, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the Times article infuriated some of Team Trump’s senior staff, who privately said they believed the reporting made their candidate — the once and future leader of the free world — appear extreme and borderline fascistic, especially on “the concentration camps framing,” a Trump adviser notes.
Months later, Trump, himself, didn’t shut down the idea his administration would put migrants in camps. “I would not rule out anything,” Trump said, when Time magazine asked whether he would build new detention camps. Pressed about Miller’s plan for camps, Trump said: “It’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent but we shouldn’t have to do very much of it, because we’re going to be moving them out as soon as we get to it.”
Today, much of Trump’s government-in-waiting feel strongly about avoiding the optics of saying they’ll be building new migrant camps.
In late October, 60 Minutes asked Trump’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, to explain what the president-elect’s historic deportation will look like. He specifically brought up the specter of “concentration camps,” and attempted to dismiss the comparison.
“Lemme tell you what it’s not going to be first,” Homan said. “It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods. It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.
CBS correspondent Cecilia Vega asked Homan to clarify what Trump’s mass deportation would look like without massive sweeps and concentration camps. He replied, “It’ll be concentrated.” He quickly added, “They’ll be targeted arrests.”
Homan, who previously served in the Obama and Trump administrations, is known as the architect of Trump’s family separation policy. Asked in the 60 Minutes interview for potential alternatives to separating families during deportations, Homan offered: “Families can be deported together.”
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