The centerpiece of former president Donald Trump’s reelection bid was a promise to deport record numbers of immigrants, repeatedly saying they were “poisoning the blood” of the United States. He also seized upon an increase in illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico to suggest a link to crime, falsely accusing Haitian immigrants of eating cats and dogs, and called Puerto Rico a trash pile. This proved unfortunately successful, as according to an Associated Press survey, Trump supporters were focused primarily on immigration and inflation, with about 4 in 10 voters saying that immigrants living illegally in the U.S. should be deported, an increase from about 3 in 10 in 2020.
According to Reuters, some exit polls showed “39% of voters said most immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported while 56% said they should be allowed to apply for legal status.” The consequences of following through on these campaign promises will almost inevitably bring deleterious effects, not least on the economy. Imposing strict limits on immigration could threaten the stability of the U.S. job market, kept afloat by immigrant workers, according to NPR. Additionally, his proposed tariff plan, if implemented, will likely be very destabilizing for U.S. trade relations and raise costs to the public domestically.
With regards to these campaign promises, they are indeed grim. Trump has claimed he will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime statute that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country with which the U.S. is at war, mentioning the use of the National Guard which would require orders from a governor. Use of this law would almost certainly draw challenges in court, for its history of enabling human rights abuses during some of the darkest times in the country’s history. In the three times it has been used, it allowed internment camps for people of Japanese, Italian, and German descent, including citizens. Trump has also said he intends to expand the model set by Eisenhower’s 1954 Operation Wetback massive deportation campaign, using military tactics, tanks and airplanes, that saw people pulled from their homes, resulting in 1 million people deported.
It is important to note that during his 2017-2021 presidency, Trump struggled to sharply increase deportations, according to government data. During his presidency, he criticized Biden policies which aimed to create and expand legal pathways to entry, curtailing the use of Temporary Protected Status, which allowed people already in the U.S. to stay if their homelands are deemed unsafe. He also sought to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, despite its historic bipartisan support, as it allows its hundreds of thousands of recipients to live and work in the country they were brought to as young children.
His administration may pressure Mexico to reinstate Trump-era policies that forced asylum seekers to wait there for hearings in U.S. immigration court. With regards to the logistics of this threatened mass deportation, current and former ice officials say the difficult part will be finding the money, according to CNN, as the average cost of the process has only grown. Lack of personnel has also been cited as a difficulty. Immigrant advocate groups warn of the human cost of this divisive effort: family separations and devastated communities. These groups alongside the ACLU have been preparing for court battles should Trump once again test the boundaries of his legal authority.
Be very careful!
Cuídese de los notarios, consultores en inmigración o cualquier persona no calificada y preparada en estos temas. Siempre busque la asesoría y los servicios de un abogado de inmigración para sus procesos y trámites migratorios.