Experts say U.S. would need internment camps, police state to carry out Trump's promises

Much has been made about the scant details Donald Trump has provided as for how exactly he plans to make America great again. This much is for sure: It will be very, very expensive. And, according to experts who spoke with The New York Times, it would mean something even scarier than that, too — to actually carry out Trump's promises, experts say the United States would need to become a police state.

Take Trump's plan to deport 11 million people as just one example. In recent history, deportations peaked at 400,000 a year, so to reach the scale vowed by Trump would mean exceptional changes. It is reasonable to expect police checking citizenship papers during traffic stops; large-scale raids on farms, factories, construction sites, and restaurants; the arrest and detention of tens of thousands "similar to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII"; and the quick instatement of dozens of emergency courts to process everyone.

"I can't even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don't have a police state, where the police can't break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant," former secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, Michael Chertoff said. "Unless you suspend the Constitution and instruct the police to behave as if we live in North Korea, it ain't happening."

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Plus it would cost at least $400 billion, according to one conservative-leaning research group's estimate — and that is only if the plan is carried out over 20 years. And all that is without even considering the issues with Trump's wall, or the problems involving water-sharing treaties with Mexico — but you can read about that and more over at The New York Times.