The next head of Homeland Security needs to do a lot more to live up to Trump’s promises

Trump should ramp up fulfilling campaign promise of largest deportation effort in American history, targeting close to 20 million illegal aliens.

Lora Ries, former acting deputy chief of staff at DHS, is director of The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.

With new DHS leadership, however, the administration can better pursue mass deportations. Limiting them to "the worst of the worst" results in only hundreds of thousands of deportations, when at least 20 million deportable aliens were residing in the U.S. at the start of Trump's second term. In this Phase 2, the administration should open the aperture to significantly increase deportation numbers.

Candidate Trump promised the largest mass deportation effort in American history, not just the worst criminal aliens. America needs the administration to carry out that promise to restore the rule of law, relieve American taxpayers from unsustainable welfare, education, healthcare and other costs, and open college and job opportunities for American students, graduates and employees shut out by foreign students, cheaper labor and fraud.