Trump’s Border Plans Are Light on Details but Strong on Fury

The former president’s sweeping immigration proposals face daunting challenges, but voters still trust his positions more than his opponent’s.

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Former President Donald J. Trump receiving the endorsement of the Border Patrol union in Arizona on Sunday.

During a rally in Arizona on Sunday, former President Donald J. Trump left out a crucial detail when promoting his proposal to hire 10,000 new agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.

He did not say where these legions of new agents would come from.

Given its longtime struggles with recruitment, it would take the U.S. Border Patrol years to ramp up hiring to that extent, if it ever could.

But that was just one of several aggressive moves he said would be coming to protect the border if he is elected. He pledged mass deportations, but it is unclear whether he could harness the resources to roundup millions of immigrants. He proposed funneling some of the military’s budget toward border security, though he did not say how he would get the courts to sign off on that.

Mr. Trump’s plans as outlined on Sunday were the latest reminder that when it comes to the former president’s vision for border security, hyperbolic rhetoric, rather than substantive solutions, often wins out.

Many politicians announce ambitious, if unrealistic, policies on the campaign trail to energize their base that are scant on implementation details. But Mr. Trump has centered much of his campaign on such proposals, pitching a staggering array of tax breaks without discussing how he might pay for them and promising an immediate end to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza but providing scant details on how.

He is running that playbook again as he seizes on the issue of illegal border crossings, which rose to record levels under the Biden administration, to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

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