WASHINGTON — Immigration advocates and civil rights groups are preparing to take on President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises to crack down on immigration, from reviving controversial policies from his first term to enacting mass deportations.

Trump has pledged to end parole programs that have allowed immigrants to work and live legally in the country immediately after taking office. In those humanitarian parole programs, beginning in 2021, there were over 1 million immigrants with temporary protections.

What is likely to follow immediately is the re-implementation of his previous immigration policies, such as bans on allowing people from predominantly Muslim countries to enter the United States and the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico as long as they want. waiting for their cases.

Immigration groups are preparing for those policies and those to come before Inauguration Day.

Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, presented a sobering reality.

“We recognize that many feel terrified of what the next four years will bring,” she said in a statement. “While we can’t stop all harm from happening, we say to all who experience harm: we are here to do everything in our power to support and protect each other.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been at the forefront of challenging some of Trump’s toughest immigration policies during his first term, said on social media that it was prepared for legal challenges starting on Trump’s first day in office .

Greisa Martínez Rosas, executive director of the largest immigrant youth organization, United We Dream, said in a statement that with Trump promising to plan mass deportations, they have “clear eyes on the fight ahead.”

“We will use and raise our power to new heights, building the largest pro-immigrant movement this country has ever seen, to fight white nationalism and enact a vision for the future that gives us honor the values ​​of a pluralistic democracy in which everyone it can live and prosper without fear,” said Martínez Rosas.

deportations

Some immediate deportations could include those already in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which was 37,395 in September.

It could also include expanding expedited deportations, meaning that if a person without permanent legal status has been in the country for two years without a court hearing or any type of authorization, they can be deported without a hearing before a judge.

This type of removal is limited to 100 miles from the border. However, during the first Trump administration, that zone was expanded to the rest of the country. A second Trump administration could do it again.

The Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, he estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal within the U.S. could apply to up to 288,000 people.”

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, recently told CBS News that mass deportation will be targeted.

“It’s not going to be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said. “There will be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find them based on numerous, you know, investigative processes.”

funding

Also under discussion would be the cost of mass deportations.

Trump’s core campaign promise to enact mass deportations would be a costly undertaking requiring congressional approval — something that might be easier if the incoming president is given control of both chambers.

The American Board of Immigration, in a conservative estimate, finder that it would cost $968 billion to remove the roughly 13 million undocumented immigrants in the country over the next ten years.

According to the analysis, it would cost the government $89.3 billion in arrests, $167.8 billion in mass detention, $34 billion in prosecutions, and $24 billion in removals.

This funding should be appropriated through Congress.

As of Thursday morning, it was unclear whether Trump would deal with a divided Congress or united GOP control. Republicans swept the Senate, and while there were still too many races left to project control of the chamber, the GOP was heading for a slim majority.

Economic impact

Economic experts warned of the consequences of the dismissal of millions of workers.

Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council, tried to play down the economic effects of mass deportations.

“If any president chooses to pursue mass deportation, it would have a tremendous cost to the government while devastating the economy,” Robbins said in a statement Wednesday.

“It is critical that policymakers and the American public understand what this would entail: tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, already strained industries devastated, millions incarcerated and thousands of families torn apart causing widespread terror and chaos in communities across the country.”

In 2022, households headed by undocumented immigrants paid $75.6 billion in total taxes, according to the American Immigration Council. It is estimated that about 4.8% of the US labor force consists of unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center.

Last updated at 14:19, November 7, 2024