Mexico Border Immigration: Undocumented Immigrants Filling Local Jails, Police Warn Trump’s Policies Increase Crime

President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States with some big goals – huge, some might say – for stopping crime and illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border. They included building a sprawling wall across 1,900 miles of land, increasing immigrant detention center populations across the country and deporting as many as three million undocumented immigrants immediately upon taking office.

The only problem for Trump, however, was the U.S.-Mexico border is already in a state of crisis: authorities in states like Arizona and California said jails and immigrant detention centers were already nearing capacity, while the president’s policies stand to create a rift between border towns and their local police forces.

Mark Napier, a sheriff in Tucson, Arizona said his largely Democratic community could see their trust in authorities worsen under Trump. As deportations along the border increase, the Republican said residents may avoid phone calls to the police while authorities carry out new Department of Homeland security guidelines surrounding immigration.

"We have our plate full," Napier said about his police department, which covers at least 9,000 square miles on the border. If the local community widely opposes the implementation of Trump’s immigration policies, the sheriff told CBS News Friday his department "wouldn’t get a lot of the calls we get where people witness crimes or are victims of crime…out of fear that would lead to deportation."

John Kelly, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, issued two memos Tuesday detailing how his department would begin enforcing the president's illegal immigration policies. The memos intended to ease the process of increasing deportations across the country by expanding qualifications for detainment and sending all undocumented immigrants who cross the southern border back into Mexico, regardless of their native-nation.

Activists and nonpartisan civil rights organizations have condemned the president's plans to dramatically increase detention and deportations, saying the expansion could become a human rights crisis under Trump.

"This is immigration enforcement under Trump: due process, human decency, and common sense are treated as inconvenient obstacles on the path to mass deportation," The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement emailed to International Business Times Saturday. "Virtually every immigrant is now a priority for detention and deportation… State and local law enforcement agencies, including those with records of racial profiling and police brutality, are encouraged to become immigration agents."