President-elect Trump’s promise to carry out mass deportations and abolish birthright rights, potentially affecting millions of U.S. citizens, is raising alarm bells among immigrant communities who fear an overzealous Trump administration could destroy countless families.
Trump outlined his deportation agenda last week on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker, where he reiterated his position that the 2024 election results require a draconian crackdown on immigrants.
Asked if he would search To deport all undocumented immigrants, including otherwise law-abiding people and mixed-status families, Trump resorted to a binary law-and-order bromide and an adversarial stance on the broader economic impact of illegal immigration.
“You have no choice. Firstly, they cost us a fortune. But we start with the criminals, and we have to do it. And then we’ll start with others and see how it goes,” he told Welker.
According to a Congressional Budget Office Report As of July, increased immigration from 2021 to 2026 will result in a $897 billion reduction in the federal deficit over 2024-2034, taking into account the taxes paid by immigrants, the government services provided to them, and their impact on the economy.
The report warned that the impact on local and state budgets could be different, a point that immigration restriction advocates have made central to their economic arguments for deporting millions of foreign-born workers.
But Trump went a step further, echoing fresh border czar Tom Homan’s idea that to avoid family separations, family members of deportees who are U.S. citizens should leave the country voluntarily rather than have the option of asking their family to stay in the United States.
That proposal angered immigrant and Latino groups, many of whom take the position that mass deportations are ultimately aimed at ethnic segregation.
“Basically he says, ‘Oh, if your parents are undocumented and you’re 5 years senior, you were born here’ – just like my son was born here – ‘how about I don’t want to separate families?’ How about deporting yourself too?’ There is no way to deport US citizens. It’s ridiculous and idiotic, but it’s also very indicative of the bigotry and deep hatred of non-white Americans in this country. Every single person, regardless of party, should be in turmoil at this moment,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.).
Ramirez, whose Guatemalan mother crossed the border pregnant with her and whose husband was until recently a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, also called Trump’s threat to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s birthright clause on citizenship a shot across the bows against all foreign-born people in the United States.
“This man is talking about taking away the birthright of US citizens. What would stop him from accepting my husband’s green card? Under Donald Trump’s presidency, no one is safe at this point, not a U.S. citizen [a legal permanent resident] and certainly not an immigrant. We are living what I think seems unimaginable in my 41 years of life.”
That doom and gloom is shared by many immigrant advocacy groups, who fear that Trump, Homan and fresh White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller will have a sense of unfettered authority in the first days of the fresh administration, regardless of the economic and social impact.
“There is a growing consensus that Trump’s mass deportation agenda will hit American consumers and industries hard, but the scope of what Trump and his team are proposing goes far beyond the economic impact.” Trump and his allies are making clear that Their mass deportation agenda will include the deportation of U.S. citizens, including children, while simultaneously aiming to undermine a century and a half of legal and moral precedent on birthright. “Overall, their attacks go far beyond the narrow perspective of immigration to the fundamental question of who can become an American,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice.
This sense of free rein is supported by Republicans, who see the November election results as a mandate to get tougher on immigration enforcement.
“When I listen to my Democratic colleagues, it seems to me as if November 5th never happened. That we had no choice. That we didn’t have a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration’s failed border policies. To be clear, the crisis at the southern border is entirely a problem caused by the Biden administration’s policies. It is a man-made disaster,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said as he spoke about the potential impact of a mass deportation policy at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
But the outrage from immigrant communities has nothing to do with the border — it affects millions of immigrants across the country, both documented and undocumented, and their U.S. citizen relatives who feel politically under attack.
New administration officials are reinforcing this sentiment by publicly denouncing sanctuary areas that are home to immense undocumented and mixed-status populations.
At a holiday party hosted by the Law and Order PAC and the Northwest Side GOP Club in Chicago, Homan said the city is the starting point for the deportation program.
“Chicago is in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks,” he said, before threatening Mayor Brandon Johnson with prosecution if he prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from carrying out their fresh mission.
The border czar position has not historically had criminal powers, but ICE operations have often relied on instilling a sense of fear in immigrant communities to deter.
But immigration advocates say feelings of fear also have damaging effects on civic life, including economic performance.
“Mass deportations and the climate of fear they would create threaten our country’s economic future by removing from the nation’s workforce key workers who help strengthen the prosperity of all Americans, regardless of background,” wrote Janet Murguía, President of UnidosUS, in her testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
