WASHINGTON, DC – During the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly said he would declare a national emergency and apply the military to deport millions of foreigners.
This has many people – including many who are eligible to be here – wondering how long they will be able to stay. But amid the worries, activists and immigrant community leaders can only guess what legal, political and economic constraints Trump will face when he takes office in a few months.
There are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, and Trump sounded as if he planned to deport a huge number of them – and perhaps also people who were brought here at a juvenile age and are protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, such as many Haitians in Springfield who have transient protected status, and people from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have been allowed to enter the United States under parole program.
Concerns about what the incoming Trump administration might do to any of these groups were palpable here on November 13, at a conference sponsored by the National Immigration Forum, which advocates for immigrants among the business community, law enforcement and religious leaders.
While receiving the award from the team, Officer Mitchell Soto Rodriguez of the Blue Island Police Department in Illinois broke down. A DACA recipient from Mexico, she told the audience she could lose her protection and be forced to leave the country.
Reyna Montoya is also a DACA recipient and founded an immigrant support organization in Phoenix.
“Many of our young people are terrified right now,” she said, explaining that damage had already occurred before Trump took office.
“As soon as we heard the election results, I started texting, calling and reaching out to our students,” Montoya said. “Many of them started telling me they were afraid. Many of them said that they went to school, which was a school of faith – a private institution. They said any students who looked a little brown began to be targeted. My classmates said, “Are you ready to be deported?” Are you ready for your family to be deported? In the institution of faith. This is the reality we wake up to. I don’t have to imagine family separation. In 2012, my father was arrested for nine months.”
But as with his first term, Trump’s substantial promises on immigration are likely to face practical problems that make them impossible to fulfill, several people said.
“That’s the biggest question,” said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, whose El Paso-based district straddles the border with Mexico. “We really don’t know what to expect in terms of scope, performance and scale.”
Despite what Trump may have said during his campaign, he and Biden deported roughly the same number of illegal immigrants during their terms – and both were deported much less than Barack Obama during his first term, which began in 2009.
“Many Americans don’t know that deportations in America are ongoing and happening all the time, and I don’t think they know in what numbers,” Escobar said. “Anything beyond that will require more resources. This is possible regardless of whether Congress provides Donald Trump with all the resources he needs to provide the labor, money for the flights themselves, and everything else that comes with it. Congress could allocate much more money for this purpose. At the same time, Congress, under Republican control in the House of Representatives, is trying to make deep cuts to domestic programs. So they will have to find a balance.”
Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, said Trump, like his predecessors, will likely prioritize deporting immigrants who commit crimes and “permanently undocumented” people who are in the country and have not filed application for legal eternal residence or green card holders.
“But I doubt whether he will be able to implement his entire plan,” Murray said.
One reason she gave was the $150 billion price tag that will accompany Trump’s promises of mass deportations. Others are economic and political in nature.
Across the United States, the business community is in crisis tough to find employees. Murray said its leaders would likely balk if Trump went too far and reduced the workforce even further.
“Companies will start to revolt when they start losing so many employees at a time when the labor market is struggling so much,” she said. “They don’t have legally authorized employees now and (the business community) will really start to push back.”
And while you might not know it from the Trump campaign and election results, society has a lot of sympathy for certain immigrant groups, Murray said. That doesn’t mean that many people in these groups don’t live in fear.
“The Haitian community is concerned about what the new president will do, such as ending Haitians (Temporary Protected Status) and mass deportations,” said Rose-Thamar Joseph, chief operating officer of the Haitian Community Opportunity Center in Springfield.
He has been trying to reassure members of his community since Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance spread a racist lie this summer that Haitians in the community were stealing neighbors’ pets and eating them.
“We know the U.S. is a country of laws, but I don’t know what will happen,” Joseph said. “We’re trying to educate the community to try to reduce the stress, but that’s all we can do.”
Murray said a poll conducted by the National Immigration Forum shows that people with Temporary Protected Status, DACA recipients and Afghan allies who have fled to the United States have overwhelming public support.
“When we get to these populations, we see that they are very similar,” she said. “That’s not true these people when we talk about immigrants,” polls show. When we reach this category, we will begin to influence the psyche of the American voter. They’ll say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I may have held a mass deportation sign in my hand, but I didn’t realize that you would send this one (emergency medicine technician) who I know is crucial to my community… Then you will see the real brave, check with the Americans. “I think that’s when Americans will literally start protesting.”
Trump is already facing opposition from within his own party over another part of his deportation plans – using the military to round up and deport undocumented people. On Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. called the proposal illegal.
Escobar, whose district includes the massive military installation at Fort Bliss, said using soldiers to enforce immigration law disrupts their mission.
“I am very concerned that Trump is likely to use or seek to use the military for this purpose,” she said. “This should be shocking to veterans and members of the military community and all Americans because it degrades our military (readiness), it distracts from their mission, and they are not trained to engage in this way.”
Montoya, a DACA recipient and immigration activist in Arizona, was asked if she can find hope amid all this uncertainty.
“Hope is within you and the question is simple,” she said. “What are you willing to do to protect immigrants?”
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