Trump’s proposal for mass deportation of immigrants is a moral abomination | Moira Donegan

This would be a horrific program of ethnic cleansing - yet most of the media reaction has focused on the economic costs

If you didn't know any better, you might think, from recent media coverage, that the problem with Donald Trump's proposal to round up and expel as many as 20 million immigrants is that it's not likely to work.

The Republican presidential nominee has made the mass deportation pledge central to his case for a second term. On the campaign trail, he diverts every question, no matter what the issue, back to the supposed danger and malignancy of immigrants and the urgency of getting rid of them. The economy? It will be better when there are fewer immigrants competing for jobs, he says. Housing prices? They'll come down when millions of people are kicked out of the country, he claims. Crime will come down when the immigrants are gone, he says, because murder is in their genes".

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist