Last summer, president-elect Donald Trump basically became Hitler in the eyes of millions of Democrats when he announced that, as president, he would combat the issue of illegal immigration by building a border wall between Mexico and the U.S. and deporting all 11-or-so million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. His motives ranged from within the realm of law and order to the economy; he claimed that the American worker was suffering because of the vast amount of illegal immigrants taking American jobs without paying taxes. Since he, astonishingly, has just been elected to the highest office in the land, many are fearing a Nazi-like removal of millions of foreigners from their homes and their involuntary return to the countries from which they fled.

That's not gonna happen. Well, at least not any more than it already happens.

To understand this, we need to look at current immigration policy of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security defines "deportation" as "the formal removal of an alien from the United States when the alien has been found removable for violating the immigration laws." These laws, in a basic sense, state that anyone who commits a felony and is found to be undocumented can be jailed, put on trial, and on be grounds for deportation.

So, if illegal immigrants already get deported, does that mean President Obama has been doing it? Absolutely. In fact, Obama has reportedly deported more undocumented immigrants than any other president in U.S. history, with over 2.5 million deportations under his belt. While that may not be close to Trump's proposed goal of all 11 million, it does illustrate a few things. One: the U.S. government, even under the most liberal president it has ever had, does not treat border security as a "humanitarian" issue, but as a law-and-order/national-security issue. Two: the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants is not a radical Trump-exclusive idea, but a reality that has existed for years, ever since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was passed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

But, the thing that sets Donald Trump apart is that he promised to deport every single undocumented immigrant in the U.S. during his presidency. This is different simply because no president has ever made so big a deal out of illegal immigration to make such a bold goal. But, it's not going to happen. It's just another one of Trump's promises he used to get the media attention that made him the next president. He may set tougher laws, but the possibility of the fulfillment of this promise is as thin as his hair. Here's why.

One of the reasons why he can't have a mass deportation is because undocumented immigrants don't have chips installed within their heads that tell the government who they are and where they live. Remember, these people are undocumented immigrants. The documents of their citizenship within the U.S. are nonexistent. They are essentially ghosts of the system. Policemen cannot legally detain someone just for being in the U.S. illegally, so law enforcement records of illegal immigrants essentially cannot exist, unless said immigrants have already been caught and deported for committing a felony. Therefore, deporting all illegal immigrants would require an enormous nationwide search to find them.

There is one drawback to this: the undocumented immigrants who have overstayed their visas are in the system. The government knows who they are. They may not be in the best shape compared to the ones who came here by illegally crossing the border. Trump has even mentioned making their deportations a priority. However, certain monetary factors within the nationwide "illegal-hunt" might hinder his aspirations.

This process of setting up national investigations all over the country to find and remove every single one of these 11 million people is extremely difficult, if even possible. The American Action Forum has estimated that such a project would require anywhere between $400 billion and $600 billion in taxpayer money. These numbers are the sum of all expenditures involved in the deportation process, such as apprehension, detention, transportation, legal processing, etc. If these numbers are completely accurate, or at least reflect an blurry idea of what the total cost of deportation will be, there is no doubt that Donald trump would have to raise taxes on the American people immensely; yet, he has released a detailed tax plan that says the exact opposite, as he would reduce taxes across all brackets. So, there is no calculable way to fund the deportation project.

Donald Trump also fails to realize how detrimental the removal of every illegal immigrant would be to the U.S. economy. One of his economic goals for the U.S. is to meet and maintain a consistent 4% GDP growth rate as president, which, if you don't know economics, indicates an insanely healthy American economy, bursting at the seams with production. Yet, the removal of every undocumented immigrant, eight million of which are in the labor force, would cause an estimated 5.7% economic shrinkage, which is just 0.6% shy of that of the 2008 recession. When eyeing a 4% GDP growth, I don't think anyone, even in their worst judgment, would allow the worst recession since 2008 to happen, given how predictable the economic cause-and-effect factor of this plan is. Perhaps Trump and his most dedicated supporters, along with a few hardcore "secure the border" Congressmen like Jeff Sessions, could support it, but there's no way Congress, even with a Republican majority, would let it fly.

So, to anyone out there worried about themselves or someone close to them being deported, under a Trump administration, you shouldn't be worried. It is financially infeasible, but even if it was possible, the consequences would greatly outweigh the goal. The American people may have elected the author of this idea to the presidency, but good the ol' system of checks and balances wouldn't allow a single crumb of this action anywhere near the House or Senate Floor. Don't worry. The image of the United States conducting mass deportations while President Trump stands, arms crossed, watching it happen while nodding in pride, is nothing more than fantasy.