With Donald Trump ready to unleash his mass deportation policy in January, many local and national immigrant rights, legal aid and civil rights organizations are preparing for the unexpected.
During his campaign, Trump often spoke of launching – on day one – “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America”. Now that he has been elected, various rights groups are preparing for the uncertainty of how quickly and to what extent Trump will be able to execute his plans.
After his inauguration, these groups expect a flurry of executive orders around rescinding Joe Biden’s orders on immigration and facilitating efforts to deport people. Trump is likely to rescind old rules on who is a priority for deportation, making it clear that authorities will deport anyone at any time. NBC News reported there could be five executive orders on immigration.
Also expected is an immediate focus on criminals and work-site raids, which the former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) director and incoming border czar Tom Homan has confirmed.
“Trump’s going to try to go big and portray his effort as focused on criminals,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of America’s Voice. “But of course, they’re blurring the lines on who is considered a criminal.”
Trump is expected to target temporary protected status (TPS) holders, and activists and lawmakers are asking President Biden to intervene, though it is unclear how effective any moves would be in restraining Trump. Those with TPS hail from 16 different countries affected by war, natural disasters, or other dangerous circumstances and are allowed to live and work in the country. With TPS for people from El Salvador expiring in March, it offers an easy way for Trump to reduce the number of TPS holders, and have new people to deport.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto said Biden could take action to protect TPS holders. She warned that when Trump was in office the first time, calls to her office reflected the chaos he created around immigration and family separation.
“They’re going to engage in mass deportation and nobody is safe,” Cortez Masto said.
Alida Garcia, a longtime organizer who worked for FWD.us for years, agreed with the proposition that a legal TPS holder could lose that protection and possibly be detained by the Trump administration within just a few months.
“Detention, civil rights violations, I think they’re going to happen every day in these places,” she said, warning that beyond the disruption of rights, the administration would find “power in reforming partnerships with local law enforcement that builds out their deportation force”.
Any efforts for large-scale mass deportations would require close coordination between immigration agents and local law enforcement officials.
“The question is: will Democratic mayors and governors step up to protect people?” Garcia asked.
Advocates are aware Trump could go further and enact his plans to use the national guard or military to enforce mass deportation efforts in cities. In these scenarios, long-term residents who have been in the US for decades and have longstanding community relationships, could be at risk.
Groups like United We Dream (UWD), a national organization that works in local communities, are sharing “Know Your Rights” plans for immigrants in partnership with legal organizations, and telling immigrants they can legally film law enforcement incidents, which would allow Americans to see the reality of mass deportation efforts as they unfold across the country.
The organization is also pushing cities to declare themselves sanctuaries for immigrants, ensure schools and hospitals are not places Ice can come to detain people, and help immigrants by giving them access to driver’s licenses and library cards so they have identification.
Cities such as Denver, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, which have passed “sanctuary city” ordinances, will not be complying with mass deportation efforts. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, even called a special legislative session to work on counteracting the Trump administration’s plans.
The courts are seen as one of the most effective ways to fight Trump on mass deportation. Last month, six attorneys general told Politico of their plans to fight mass deportation efforts.
Kica Matos, head of the National Immigration Law Center, was among the first to prepare for the coming mass deportation policy. Last December, after a New York Times article featured Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, detailing the plans, Matos began preparations.
Matos listed a number of areas of litigation, including anything similar to Trump’s first-term Muslim ban, work-site raids, protecting activists, use of military to carry out deportations, attacks on birthright citizenship, internment camps and family separation, among others.
She also warned Trump could try to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to arrest and deport people from so-called enemy nations. That act has only been used during the war of 1812 and the first and second world wars.
“He would have to name a country that falls under the scope, but it would be used to carry out mass deportation and violate the constitution and people’s due process rights,” Matos said.
Maria Rodriguez, the executive director of the Valiente Fund, which operates out of the progressive donor network Way to Win, said Trump’s overreach would cost him with Americans.
The group surveyed 8,654 people in the fall and found that the more respondents found out about what mass deportation entails, the more they moved away from Trump.
“People are already scared, but by preparing them we give them the tools, and maybe they’re less scared,” said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, UWD’s deputy director of federal advocacy. “Our people are not going to be caught by surprise this time around. Last time he got elected we didn’t know how far he was willing to go – now we do.”
