WHAT TO EXPECT FROM TRUMP? WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN AFTER JANUARY? Part 2

This is the second part of last week's article on the National Immigration Project's report on what we can expect from Trump. As I said before, we don't know the details of how Trump will change the immigration system and what programs and policies he will implement, the following is general information so we can prepare ourselves.

What do we know about possible “raids” and what do they mean, raids refer to very aggressive large immigration operations especially at job sites or in a community or neighborhood, it is a policy that Trump has threatened to make more frequent.

Several years ago Immigration conducted some large raids at job sites here in West Michigan, at the Zeeland pullet mill which at the time was called Bil-Mar now it is Tyson and at the Plainwell cattle slaughter among other places, on these occasions dozens of ICE police officers entered the factories and aggressively detained people even people who were citizens, permanent residents or who were lawfully in the United States.

The word “raid” is used with the intention of causing fear in people but it does not mean that ICE has more power than usual. In a raid the agents must have a warrant and specific information about the people to detain them, what happens is that in a raid it complicates the response of the community including legal services to protect them, that is why it is important to organize and prepare in advance.

What about programs that have cases pending in the courts? Like Biden's Keeping Families Together and the DACA program for DREAMers. Unfortunately the former is likely to be eliminated by the Trump administration since one of his collaborators the governor of Texas was the one who filed the lawsuit to stop it. As for DACA even though more than 12 years have passed it is still pending in the courts and we are waiting for the decision of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans which is quite conservative and we would not be surprised if it issues a decision against DACA and probably the Trump administration will not continue to defend the program as the Biden administration did.

However it is important to understand that people with DACA are currently protected even though their DACA is about to expire and they must continue to renew, many pro-migrant groups are working to protect people with DACA status and Trump himself has said he is not against it, although he also has not said he will do anything to make the program continue or give a path to residency for dreamers.

What about TPS Temporary Protected Status, what will Trump do?

It is very likely that Trump will begin to remove TPS for many if not all of the countries that are currently protected including El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti. However people who have TPS will not lose their protection immediately, if they are in time to renew they have to renew and will keep their protection at least until the expiration date, which depends on each country. We will continue lobbying so that they do not eliminate it.

What about the rumor that Trump will start deporting U.S. citizens and take away birthright citizenship? can he do that? Under current law no, although it has been said Trump will try to issue an executive order or other policies stating that children of undocumented parents although born in the U.S. are not citizens, however advocates and lawyers will surely challenge every policy in court as it is very clear that the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution includes anyone born in the country and has been that way for over 150 years.

People who have children born here who do not yet have a passport it is not a bad idea for them to apply for their children's US passport before Trump tries to change the policy.

What will Trump do about the border?

He will most likely take several measures to try to close the borders and make things more difficult. We would not be surprised if he will try again to put the ban against people coming from certain countries where the majority are Muslim, also most likely he will use the famous Title 42 to close the border and apply the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forces people to stay in Mexico while they ask for political asylum, he will also try to expand his famous border WALL and the most negative thing would be to reinstate the detention of families and again possibly separate them.

We know there will be increased prosecutions of people crossing without permission and they will get tougher against people who have been previously deported and although including Biden they have made it much more difficult to apply for asylum, people nevertheless have the right to apply for asylum, but Trump will likely try to restrict it even more.

I will give more information in upcoming articles. We need to stay tuned and we need to prepare.