"That big beautiful wall," as President Donald Trump likes to describe it, stole most of the attention when he signed his Jan. 25 executive order on border security and immigration enforcement.

But now that we've seen the details, most troubling is Trump's dramatically expanded and unjustly aggressive deportation campaign -- with expensive infrastructure to support it.

Ten thousand more immigration enforcement officers and 5,000 new Border Patrol agents. Expanded court operations. More and bigger detention facilities, with 1,100 beds added just since Trump's swearing-in.

The White House claims its goal is to deport criminals, but it's broadened those efforts to potentially include any activity that might bring a conviction, including entering the United States without permission.

That means any individual without proper documentation could face deportation, a chilling consequence that understandably has millions of individuals panicked and confused. (See the list at the end of this editorial for details.)

Missing from Trump's tough talk is any sense of the fiscal, logistical and humanitarian realities involved, the on-the-ground facts that led Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush to take more restrained approaches.

For example, the Obama administration focused on recent border-crossers and individuals who had committed violent crimes. That resulted in a record number of deportations without creating the kind of fears swelling up from this week's enforcement news -- and sending undocumented immigrants back into the shadows.

At least for now, the self-described "Dreamers," those who were brought here as young children, will not be targeted unless they commit crimes.

But the enormity of Trump's plan also will make it stupendously expensive. The federal government already spends $18 billion a year on immigration enforcement. Exactly where will the billions more come from to round up this vastly expanded pool of 11 million deportation targets? The best answer from the White House is "wait and see."

These latest developments also threaten to further implode Washington's already cratering relationship with our neighbor to the south. The Trump plan allows federal agents to send people back to Mexico, even if they're not from that country. The White House's rationale is that most of the undocumented coming from Central America traveled here through Mexico.

Because Mexico would have to sign off on such a plan -- highly unlikely -- this is an example of saber-rattling regulations that, when examined carefully, reveal insurmountable difficulties.

Here's another: Homeland Security will expand a program in which local law enforcement helps capture immigration-law violators. Obama rightly shrunk that operation over concerns about racial profiling and the distrust engendered between the immigrant community and police.

Despite common-sense solutions offered over many years by this newspaper and others, comprehensive reform was too often just a talking point in Washington. Now the decades of failure to bring sanity to the nation's immigration laws have devolved into this:

Open season on millions of people who are doing nothing more than raising families, paying taxes, and taking on hard and low-wage work.

Sweeping changes

The guidelines released Tuesday call for immigration officers to focus first on deporting convicted criminals or those charged with crimes. But they also allow officers to detain undocumented immigrants who have:

-- Been charged with crimes not yet adjudicated.

-- Not been charged with anything but have committed "acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense." That would include the millions believed to have entered the U.S. without passing through an official border crossing

-- Received an improper welfare benefit.

-- Committed minor infractions such as driving without a license.

-- The guidelines also expand expedited removals, individuals who can be removed without appearing before an immigration judge. While Obama limited them to people caught within 100 miles of the border and within two weeks of entry, they now will apply to people caught anywhere in the U.S. within two years of arrival.