This month of May marks several anniversaries of measures and events with a common denominator: they are the product and consequence of extreme immigration policies based on xenophobia, and the virulent rhetoric that characterizes the discourse around them.
May 7 marked 6 years since the disastrous zero-tolerance policy that separated families at the border and literally ripped children from the arms of their mothers and fathers became official, in 2018, and whose consequences prevail. That year, the then Secretary of Justice under Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, justified the public policy by citing Romans 13 in the New Testament to affirm that the laws must be obeyed “because God has established the government for his purposes.” Romans 13 says to “submit every person to higher authorities because there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God.” That is, God, according to Sessions, would condone family separation. Romans 13 itself states that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” which for Republicans does not seem to apply to immigrants.
May 11 marks one year since the expiration of Title 42 implemented by Trump in the midst of the pandemic to expeditiously expel migrants, including asylum seekers, citing health reasons. The real intention was to undermine asylum laws and in the process generate chaos on the border and inside the country with humanitarian, economic and political repercussions still latent.
And May 14 marks two years since the massacre in Buffalo, NY where an unbalanced man, Payton Gendron, influenced by the rhetoric of white supremacists, and a believer in the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory, that minorities want to replace whites to seize political power, killed 10 people and injured three. Eleven of the victims were African-American.
The worst thing is that the elements that contributed to implementing these policies and the rhetoric that has had deadly effects, not only in Buffalo but in other massacres motivated by racial hatred in El Paso and Pittsburgh, have intensified in this election cycle. And Republican presidential hopeful Trump has already laid out plans to revive these policies, and the subterfuges to ensure their implementation, in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, an action plan detailing the policies a second Trump administration would implement. in immigration and other areas.
In immigration matters, the centerpiece is a campaign of mass deportations, the largest in the history of the United States, according to the former president. This would lead to huge detention camps and enormous violations of civil rights since no one has a sign tattooed on their forehead indicating who is a citizen, resident or undocumented.
For David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, the cornerstone of Project 2025 on immigration “is mass deportations and blocking legal immigration by all possible means.” In his first administration, Bier indicated in a panel on Project 2025 organized by America’s Voice, the deportation campaign did not materialize due to the intervention of Congress. “But now they have a subterfuge and that is to use the militia and local and state police to do the job for them to deport people without due process of law,” Bier said.
It would also be devastating for the economy.
“The impact is enormous, because 100% of the growth in the workforce right now comes from immigrants… The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this recent increase in immigration will increase the Gross Domestic Product by 7 trillion ) of dollars over the next decade. “It will increase tax revenue by a trillion dollars,” he added.
As Angela Kelley, an immigration expert and advisor to the National Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) on the same panel, indicated, the damage of a second Trump administration will be indelible: “Damage to the millions of American families who will be destroyed by deportation.” , those fleeing violence who will face a sealed border, and all citizens who will have to show papers or risk arrest. Trump’s implemented plan will slow down America’s economic engine and drive a dagger into the heart of the nation’s character.”
Because Trump’s dream of mass deportations is a humanitarian and economic nightmare for the United States.