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WASHINGTON -- In all my years of covering immigration politics, I've never seen this kind of clarity. During a White House press briefing Monday morning, Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, had a message to migrants living illegally in the United States: Go home.

If you don't, he explained, we'll find you, we'll prosecute you and send you to jail, then deport you and never let you back in the country.

Welcome to the Trump era. After the pendulum swung way too far one way, when Joe Biden invited the world to cross the U.S. border by any means necessary, Trump won office after promising robust border enforcement.

With Trump back in the Oval Office, the pendulum always was bound to swing hard in the other direction.

Asked by a reporter how many illegal immigrants reside in the United States, Homan responded that he believes the number is 20 million. He also told reporters 139,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported since Trump's second term began.

Anti-border partisans want you to forget about unauthorized migrants with serious criminal histories, but the White House won't let go of the issue. Staff placed posters with mugshots of undocumented migrants, along with the crimes for which they were arrested, along the sidewalk reporters use when they head to or from the briefing room. The roster of crimes includes murder, rape and sexual assault of a child.

While the Trump White House is talking about violent crime, border appeasers are focused on process issues.

On Friday, an ACLU news release took ICE to task for deporting two mothers, who chose to leave the country with their three U.S. citizen children -- ages 2, 4 and 7 -- without access to attorneys.

One family, the ACLU noted, included "a U.S. citizen child suffering from a rare form of metastatic cancer." The child "was deported without medication or the ability to consult with their treating physicians -- despite ICE being notified in advance of the child's urgent medical needs. In addition, one of the mothers who was deported is pregnant, and ICE proceeded with her deportation without ensuring any continuity of prenatal care or medical oversight."

That poor child. Those poor children. But who put these children in this hellish situation? People who thought they could flout federal law and get away with it.

For his part, Homan is most concerned about the trauma inflicted on children who are trafficked, sexually assaulted and, with no say in their fate, forced to endure harsh elements in the service of adults they may not even know.

"Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime," Homan told the room.

Groups like the ACLU point out that enforcement can lead to "family separation" -- which they believe will erode support for Trump's deportations. This argument irritates me to no end. Family separation starts when one family member crosses the border. Then another, at times including children who, in some cases, can be used as props.

Whether they are well-meaning or not, family members who pay smugglers have made the choice to put their children at risk while rewarding cartels that profit from exploiting children and moving dangerous drugs.

On Monday, CNN anchor Boris Sanchez asked Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project, which represents one of the three young children, if either of the mothers had a criminal record.

Willis responded, "It's not relevant to this situation."

That's what enablers always say.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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