Immigrant rights organizers, activists and lawyers are preparing to fight back against Donald Trump’s plans to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history once he takes office again in January.
Trump’s number one rallying cry throughout the campaign was immigration, promising to move forcefully on this issue on day one of his new administration. And from all indications, it looks like he is committed to fulfilling his promise.
The president-elect has already named a number of well-known anti-immigration figures for his incoming administration who will spearhead the plan. These include former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting head Tom Homan, who was named Trump’s “border czar,” and Trump’s longtime aide, speechwriter and anti-immigrant crusader Stephen Miller. Trump also said in recent days that he intends to deploy the military to carry out parts of this broader deportation strategy.
Trump’s new picks played key roles in the family separations during his first term in the White House. They were also behind the highly controversial Muslim ban. Indeed, Miller and Homan were among the loudest opponents of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, with both rhetorical and legal attacks on this Obama policy throughout the first Trump term.
The president-elect is also reportedly planning to expand immigrant detention in private for-profit prisons. During the campaign, he spoke of invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up deportations. All of this points to concerns as to how the mass deportation process will be carried out, and the impact will this have on immigrant communities, on Long Island, throughout New York State and across the country.
In this two-part roundtable discussion, Mario A. Murillo, vice dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, speaks with a panel of organizers and activists from the New York metropolitan area about their ongoing concerns as they prepare for the new administration to take the White House in January. He was joined by the Long Island Advocate’s graduate assistant editor Jasmine Sellars in the conversation.
The panel included Melanie Creps, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN), based in Hempstead; Javier Guzman, immigrant rights activist and senior organizer for Make the Road New York; and Eliana Fernandez, long-time immigrant rights activist, organizing director of Make the Road New Jersey and a DACA recipient. Fernandez has been a vocal national voice on the issue of DACA, the early-childhood arrivals in the U.S. who are once again facing an uncertain future.
Part one begins with Nadia Marin Molina, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), describing what organization officials are thinking about as we get closer to Trump’s inauguration in January and his promise of mass deportations.
