Predictions for Trump’s mass deportation and its impact on immigrants in Washington | Opinion
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to deport tens of millions of undocumented immigrants. He has threatened to use the military in the operation. With the cooperation of some state governors, he will also deploy the National Guard. Texas has already indicated it’s prepared to offer Trump 1,400 acres of land to build detention facilities to handle “the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”
It’s likely that Trump will also attempt to pass laws, like the 1924 Johnson-Reed quota act, restricting the number of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, and completely excluding immigrants from Asia. Johnson, a eugenics advocate, designed his act to maintain, “American homogeneity.”
After the passage of the Alien Registration Act during World War II, Italians that had settled on the coast of California were ordered to move inland, even as millions of Italians, including members of my family, went to fight for America in the war. The round up and internment of Japanese-Americans during that time remains a stain on America’s reputation and promise.
People who authored many of America’s most xenophobic outrages were people not unlike Trump and those closest to him.
I wonder what percentage of Trump voters realized that it was candidate Trump who this year prevailed upon Speaker Mike Johnson to keep the bipartisan immigration bill off the House floor. Trump believed, rightly as it happens, that preventing the bill’s passage would be to his advantage in the election.
What can we expect in Trump’s second term? A repeat of what we saw in his first term, except worse. First, the implementation of Trump’s “mass deportation program” will be chaotic, conflating refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, migrants, and immigrants. Then, as the program blunders forward we will see:
- A restrictionist approach to immigration, including quotas and outright bans, and a punitive approach to enforcement, including arrest, detention, and family separation
- On-site ICE raids, and Homeland Security investigations of industries known to have a high percentage of immigrant workers, including agriculture
- A repeal (again) of the DACA program, already under a legal challenge
- Discontinuation of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for people from selected countries, where armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions caused them to flee
- Termination of President Biden’s Humanitarian Parole Program, which currently covers over 170,000 Ukrainians, as well as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans
- Delays manufactured by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in processing legal petitions for employment-based nonimmigrant (temporary) status
- Unannounced ICE investigations of student populations at US colleges and universities, including the subpoena of Student and Exchange Visitor Information records
- Racial profiling of people during law enforcement routine encounters, leading to questioning of immigration status
- Tip-offs to ICE and/or law enforcement by neighbors, co-workers and others who “suspect” someone of being an “illegal”
What can you do if you fear for yourself or a loved one? Know your rights, or get with someone who does. Washington State passed the bipartisan Keep Washington Working (KWW) Act in 2019 that provides a range of protections for Washington’s nearly one million noncitizens, ranging from refugees to undocumented immigrants. Under KWW, local and state law enforcement officers are prohibited from carrying out immigration actions, or cooperating with ICE or Border Patrol in their investigations or detentions.
The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network is one of the organizations that can help you know and exercise your rights as a resident of Washington. The Northwest Immigration Rights Project is another.