Photo: A woman holds a sign calling for ‘Mass deportation now!’ at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom.
This story by Ariana Figueroa appeared on Colorado Newsline on November 7, 2024.
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 of his first term to enacting mass deportations.
Trump has pledged to end, immediately after retaking office, parole programs that have allowed immigrants to work and live in the country legally. In those humanitarian parole programs, as of 2021, there were more than 1 million immigrants with temporary protections.
What is likely to immediately follow is the re-implementation of his previous immigration policies, such as bans on allowing people from predominantly Muslim countries into the United States and reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their cases.
Immigration groups are preparing for those policies, and the ones to follow, ahead of Inauguration Day.
Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, laid out a sobering reality.
“We recognize that many are feeling terrified about what the next four years will bring,” she said in a statement. “While we cannot stop all the harms from coming to pass, we say to everyone facing harm: we are here to do everything in our power to support and protect each other.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of challenging some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies during his first term, said on social media it is prepared for legal challenges beginning 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 are “clear eyed about the fight ahead.”
“We will use and grow our power to new heights, building the largest pro-immigrant movement this country has ever seen, to fight back against white nationalism, and to enact a vision for the future that honors our values of a pluralistic democracy where everyone can live and thrive without fear,” Martínez Rosas said.
Deportations
Some immediate deportations could include those already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, which was 37,395 as of September.
It could also include expanding expedited removals, which means if a person lacking permanent legal status is 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.
That type of removal is limited to 100 miles from a border. However, during the first Trump administration, that zone was expanded to the rest of the country. A second Trump administration could do that again.
The Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, has estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal to the U.S. interior could apply to as many as 288,000 people.”
Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, told CBS News recently that mass deportation would be targeted.
“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said. “They’ll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes.”
Funding
At issue would also be the cost of mass deportations.
Trump’s core campaign promise to enact mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that needs congressional approval — something that might be easier if the incoming president is granted control of both chambers.
The American Immigration Council, in a conservative estimate, found that it would cost $968 billion to remove the roughly 13 million immigrants in the country without authorization over the next ten years.
It would cost the government $89.3 billion in arrests, $167.8 billion to detain massive amounts of people, $34 billion on legal processing and $24 billion on removals, according to the analysis.
That funding would need to be appropriated through Congress.
As of Thursday morning, it was unclear if Trump would deal with a divided Congress or united GOP control. Republicans have flipped the Senate, and though there are still too many House races left to project control of the chamber, the GOP was inching toward a thin majority.
Economic impact
Economic experts have warned of the consequences of removing millions of workers.
Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the American Immigration Council, tried to break down the economic effects of mass deportations.
“Should any president choose to pursue mass deportation, it would come at an extraordinary cost to the government while also devastating the economy,” Robbins said in a Wednesday statement.
“It’s critical that policymakers and the American public understand what this would involve: tens of billions of tax-payer dollars, already-strained industries devastated, millions of people locked up in detention, and thousands of families torn apart causing widespread terror and chaos in communities across the country.”
In 2022, households led by undocumented immigrants paid $75.6 billion in total taxes, according to the American Immigration Council. It’s estimated that about 4.8% of the U.S. workforce consists of unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center.