Editorial credit: Phil Mistry / shutterstock.com

Washington, DC — New must-read commentary from Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker, “Trump’s Dangerous Immigration Obsession,” captures that while it’s hard not to become desensitized by the sheer volume of ugly anti-immigrant lies and conspiracies being spouted constantly by Donald Trump, JD Vance and allies, the costs and consequences of their clear policy agenda to make as many people as possible deportable is essential to remain focused on. As Blitzer phrases it, “The daily stream of racism and mendacity has had a numbing effect. But the question of what Trump might actually do is a prospect that voters cannot afford to ignore.”

According to Douglas Rivlin, Sr. Director of Communication for America’s Voice: 

“Republicans are actively spreading immigration-related disinformation to hurricane survivors, lying about immigrant communities in swing states and linking immigration to every issue under the sun. They are trying to stir up the animosity and violence that fuels their campaign, not least of which is the leader of the Republicans continuing to peddle eugenicist ideas without a peep of concern from other GOP leaders. Yet while decrying and denouncing the disinformation, lies and transparent attempts to divide the electorate, none of us should lose sight of what Donald Trump and allies are proposing alongside what they are saying.

Later this week, in a Louisiana courtroom, the GOP will continue its ongoing, multi-year effort to end the DACA program and strip deportation protections from Dreamers so that they become deportable under Project 2025. In combination with Republicans in Congress who obstruct and derail legislative solutions for Dreamers and immigrants, the desired outcome Republicans are seeking is that hundreds of thousands of Dreamers would be deportable and eligible for what Jonathan Blitzer labels the ‘indiscriminate and unpredictable’ mass deportation agenda of a second Trump term. The costs and consequences of this massive deportation and family separation agenda would be enormous, including on our economy, American families, and the moral fabric of our country. We can’t afford to be so numbed and desensitized by the sheer volume of vile lies and ugliness that we lose sight of what’s at stake for all Americans.”

Read Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker, “Trump’s Dangerous Immigration Obsession,” and find key excerpts below:

“Donald Trump’s most outrageous pronouncements on immigration are rarely shocking for long; they’re usually eclipsed within days, if not hours, by even more grotesque claims … The daily stream of racism and mendacity has had a numbing effect. What hasn’t Trump said at this point? But the question of what he might actually do, should he win, is a prospect that voters cannot afford to ignore. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, has announced that, if the former President is reelected, the government will deport a million people a year. Given the expense and the bureaucratic complexity alone, this projection appears unrealistic, yet that scarcely makes it less dangerous.

…There are more than eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, and government agents have enormous latitude in whom they decide to arrest. Current policy discourages ICE from apprehending anyone at hospitals, schools, or places of worship. As a top adviser at the White House during Trump’s Presidency, Miller wanted ICE, in the words of someone present at a meeting with him, “to pull children out of school.” Career officials at the Department of Homeland Security opposed Miller’s plans, but Trump has since vowed to rid the government of such people in a second term. Enforcement would be indiscriminate and unpredictable, turning anyone who is undocumented into a potential target.

…Of all the repugnant statements that Trump and his allies have made, the most revealing may have come from Vance. At a campaign event in North Carolina, he explained why he kept referring to Haitians in Springfield as “illegal” when, in fact, they are here legally, as a result of two federal policies that have been upheld in court, despite Republican efforts to dismantle them. “If Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien,” Vance said. “An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal.”

By that logic, existing legal protections and court judgments would be moot. After the Trump Administration separated some five thousand children from their parents at the border, in 2017 and 2018, a federal judge ordered the government to reunite them, and forbade further separations for the next eight years as part of a federal settlement signed in December. If reelected, will Trump simply ignore that? Hundreds of parents who were reunited with their children under the court order, but still lack permanent status, might well be deported.

They’re just one group among many that are especially vulnerable.”

Additional Resources

• Read yesterday’s America’s Voice statement: “Trump’s Signature Promise to Rip Apart American Families, Communities, and the U.S. Economy“
• American Immigration Council report on the costs of mass deportation finds it would cause GDP to drop by 4.2-6.8%, which is more than the Great Recession. The full report and findings are worth reading and available here.
• Popular Information (Substack)“Every problem Trump wrongfully blames on undocumented immigrants,” by Rebecca Crosby and Noel Simms, October 8, 2024.
• America’s Voice press briefing last week on the economic, logistical, community, and family consequences of mass deportation, featuring a range of experts highlighting why the proposed unsparing mass deportations would be devastating for all of America. Watch the briefing here.
• America’s Voice analysis, “Trump’s Team Real Scheme Revealed: A Pledge to Deport Immigrants with LEGAL Status”

  #AmericasVoice, #AntiImmigrantRhetoric, #Disinformation, #Dreamers, #ElectionIntegrity, #GOP, #ImmigrationReform, #PoliticalDivide, #Project2025, #SocialJustice, DACA, Racism, Trump