President Donald Trump has long promised to crack down on illegal immigration to the United States, and it seems that Americans are getting a good view of what that may look like. Draft memos of deportation and round-up policies have hit the news in recent days, and many of the proposals have raised alarm bells.
One of the most alarming claims, that the National Guard would be deployed to round up and deport illegal immigrants, has already been dismissed, but a number of alarming proposals still remain on the table.
Plans to vastly expand the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement department by 10,000 employees, no longer giving undocumented immigrants the right to any privacy from the federal government, expand deportation beyond dangerous criminals to anyone undocumented, use local law enforcement departments and ramp up deportation numbers have not been denied, and appear to be part of a very serious goal of mass deportation.
This is coupled with other actions Trump has taken against immigration, including his racist Muslim ban and his attempt to build an impractical, expensive and mostly symbolic wall along the southern border, to show that Trump’s isolationist goals are already being put into place. In a world of globalism, Trump’s isolationist, nationalistic, America First policy has no place and can cause significant harm. Of course it’s good news for an immigration lawyer Toronto.
Buried in his plans are also goals to deport everyone south of the border to Mexico, regardless of their nation of origin, a blatantly racist action that will strand countless people in a foreign nation that was neither their travel destination nor their destination of origin. It signals a total disrespect for the humanity of migrants seeking to come to the United States. Rather than people with needs and goals to respect and empathize with, they are bodies to be dumped elsewhere, in order to communicate only that they are not wanted here, since it would “save the Department’s detention and adjudication resources,” according to a memo released on immigration tactics.
According to the Washington Post David Martin, an immigration law professor at the University of Virginia, said Trump’s model appears to be one of “harsh enforcement”: “They apparently think, ‘we’ll be tough, and a lot of people will leave on their own ... I’m not sure about that.” Trump’s plan is blatantly one that chooses to be as cruel as dehumanizing to immigrants as possible.
Leftists, progressives, centrists and anyone who considers Trump a potential threat to the nation should have their eyes on his deportation policy. How the president plans to treat undocumented citizens says a lot about how he views people that can’t benefit him, or won’t benefit him. After all, Trump famously lumps everyone who doesn’t support him into the title of “enemy.”
How long will it be before he turns his eyes from undocumented immigrants to documented immigrants that oppose him? How long will it be before he turns his eyes on birthright citizens with immigrant parents? Trump has an image of what America is, and in his eyes it’s an America full of his supporters. Everyone else is an un-American detractor. This is a nation full of immigrants. How he behaves towards them affects everyone, and we must all be vigilant against his attempts to round up and deport.