Jeremy Bacon with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly called ICE, told Kentucky policymakers that detainment enforcement and deportation is a complicated case by case process that's difficult to summarize.
But he did say safety concerns top the list.
"One thing that we are asking every single person that we place into custody or that we focus our enforcement efforts on: is that person an active public safety threat?" he said.
Bacon said there are 27 officers in Kentucky focused on immigration enforcement, and while there are consistent calls for more, he said the budget is usually the limiting factor.
Lexington Democratic Representative Adrielle Camuel was the first to bring up Trump's large scale immigration plans.
"[Trump's] focusing on mass deportations on day one without limitation or focus on criminals who pose a threat. What would that process require as far as identification, arrest, detention and removal?" she asked. "And the second part of that is, do the immigration and Homeland Security agencies currently have enough staff and personnel and resources to do mass enforcement, mass deportation?"
"Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to comment on the first question. There's no policy in place yet, or no no way that I can give a definitive answer when I don't have the information," Bacon said. "I can tell you that that we're limited manpower-wise and I don't see that changing anytime soon."
Bacon did say, as of now, there is no national database tracking people with illegal status, who have been jailed.
