Fear in undocumented communities over Trump’s mass deportation threats

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-mass-deportation-immigration-fears

Summary

Fear is spreading among undocumented communities in the U.S. as Trump prepares to return to the White House, pledging the largest mass deportation "in U.S. history."

Advocates warn this could mean separation for millions in mixed-status families, and would require significant infrastructure, including detention camps, potentially costing $968 billion over a decade.

Trump also plans to revive harsh policies like "Remain in Mexico," affecting 74,000 asylum seekers, and to dismantle Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the 2012 Obama policy protecting about 825,000 "Dreamers" from deportation.

Additionally, he has threatened to revoke protections for Haitian and Gazan refugees and reimpose a travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries.

170 points · 25 comments · view on lemmy.world

25 Comments

adarza@lemmy.ca · 44 pts · 1y (4 replies)

q the

"why are grocery prices going up so much?"

"it's all biden's fault"

all while the diaper's on network news boasting about kicking out another million people.

cicebazna@discuss.online · 16 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Actually, once they round up all the illegals and sell them off to corporations as slave labor… or “prisoners” I guess we call them, we should see a real drop in prices. Woohoo!! Avocado toast for cheap! Suck that boomer. :-|

Zaktor@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 1y (1 reply)

They can just establish jails on the fields they currently work and save the hassle. Just transfer the prisoners around at the different harvest times while the inadequate court system works its way to their case. Since they're poor and the conservatives don't want to pay for their lawyers, the companies can sponsor lawyers for them and avoid the need for any pesky public defender. Just submit your periodic "delay the case" motion so you can be kicked back to the end of the line and get more labor.

Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee · 8 pts · 1y

This is not too far off from the reality in CA where voters essentially mandated prisoners to be used as wild-fire fighting fodder.

bamfic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

The people who grow our fucking vegetables, causing food shortages and starvation and even higher prices

zlatiah@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 1y (2 replies)

So this is a bit counter to the news article's point, and apologies for linking to Reddit... but there has been a fairly hot post on the subreddit r/USCIS. A practicing immigration attorney was sharing some thoughts on how feasible the promises are https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1glflxy/so_what_now_an_immigration_attorney_perspective/. Some quotes:

IMO, no-- the economy makes way too much money from DACA folks. I do believe that they will dangle it like a carrot to appease right-wing voters. Major corporations employ DACAmented folks. The SSN from work permits have allowed more tax revenue to come in. Too much is at stake. Legally, the legal arguments at the courts surrounding DACA involve constitutional rights, which themselves aren't going anywhere anytime soon. It's honestly just a topic that is often talked about, but hardly understood by many.

I want to put this into perspective. There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Currently, DHS has about 92,000 officers, and ICE has about 21,000 officers. It is asinine to try to achieve this.

Let's say it actually does begin and people are getting rounded up. Guess what? Not all undocumented folks are just undocumented-- many have TPS, pending asylum applications, pending T/U Visas, and work permits (see my point regarding #1). Unless a migrant has an expedited removal (not likely), DHS/ICE still needs to process each deportee, assign them A#s, and follow basic procedures. If they don't? That's a very easy way to reverse a deportation order. It's the equivalent of convicting someone of murder using a confession made under a very obvious 4/5th amendment violation. Slam dunk case.

Oh, and you know who has to handle all of these deportation cases? Federal DHS attorneys. They're already overworked, and they tend to exercise discretion. If no discretion, the overworked ones tend to gloss over cases and provide weak arguments. Only major attention is paid to serious crimes. You'd be surprised the amount of times DHS attorneys have gotten my clients' names wrong or made procedurally embarrassing typos.

... assuming the administration still follows basic social contracts, that is. If the Trump administration actually uses the military to forcefully enforce mass deportations, then I feel the US is going to be fucked on so many different more levels... and there would be way more to worry than just the deportations

BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y

None of those protections give me much faith, since they ultimately rely on courts, which are continuing to give conservatives more and more power to "do whatever they want".

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1y

Why would he use the military, they would have to purge like 40 percent of their ranks, which would destabilize it.

Instead he can just make his cop supporters federal deputies and dramatically increase their budget.

Rapidcreek@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1y

The American people wanted anger and drama, and now they're going to get it,

tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 1y (1 reply)

There's fear in documented communities about this. Hell, I'm afraid myself and I've been a citizen since George Bush Jr

InverseParallax@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

I was born here, but I was clearly an illegal immigrant in the south.

Bob_Robertson_IX@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Plans. No threats.

Takumidesh@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Plans? No, threats.

Deello@lemm.ee · 5 pts · 1y

Concepts of a plan

militaryintelligence@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Not one word about white immigrants. Guess they can stay

WhyFlip@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Don't know the numbers off hand, but I've worked with many white (and non-white) immigrants over the years, all legally migrating. This isn't about those migrating legally.

lohky@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y

It's about people like Elon who overstay their visas and backdoor their way into the system, right?

Pacattack57@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y (3 replies)

Honest question, could Biden issue an executive order to give amnesty to all illegals currently like they did last time?

DrDominate@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y

[ removed ]

dovah@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Why would he do that? It's clear the average American voter doesn't care about immigration and neither do the legal immigrants living here who voted Republican. Immigration is no longer a wedge issue for Democrats.

Pacattack57@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y

To protect people’s families from being ripped apart for one. Also it will destabilize the local economy if they deport them too fast. Hundreds of thousands of jobs disappearing and the same amount of people no longer paying local taxes like sales tax and buying things. It will basically create a mini recession in some areas.

NastyNative@mander.xyz · -15 pts · 1y (1 reply)

These deportations are going to target illegals with records. Not illegals working and contributing to the economy. The government loves free tax money.

Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 1y

Yeah but they love racism more.

BigMacHole@lemm.ee · -35 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Why are they scared? Immigrants OVERWHELMINGLY voted for Exactly this?

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 1y

For one thing, these immigrants can't vote.

nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 1y

Oh man I was gonna come in here with a sarcastic 'well they should have voted' joke but damn, I feel like when the Onion get's out Onion-ed by reality.