“Gas on a Dumpster Fire:” Immigration Under Trump 2.0
Photo by Stephen Radford
The right to seek asylum or refuge from danger is a fundamental human right. It’s protected by both international and U.S. law.
But Donald Trump wants to eliminate that right, including for the most vulnerable: children. These children are often forced to cross the border without their parents to try and claim asylum in the United States.
I spoke with Arlene Rodriguez, Esteffany Luna, and Esther Ramos, who provide legal and social services to unaccompanied migrant youth in Texas. They gave me a glimpse into the daunting obstacles faced by young asylum seekers.
Nearly a third of new cases in immigration court are minors, I learned, with 1 out of 8 being 0-4 years old.
But these children are expected to navigate the same complex processes as adults. “They have to sign their own agreements and applications, present themselves in court, and answer the judges’ questions,” said Ramos. “They’re treated very adversarially — not much different from adults.”
“Sometimes they’re so young they don’t understand what they’re being asked to do, or what is being asked of them,” Luna added.
Asylum applicants have to undergo “credible fear” screenings to convince authorities that it’s unsafe for them to go home. In interviews, documents, and court appearances, children are required to repeatedly disclose trauma, which takes a toll. “For older kids who are more conscious of the bad things they’ve experienced, it’s difficult to deal with having someone else know about it,” Rodriguez told me.
Unaccompanied minors with legal representation are nearly 100 times more likely to be granted relief than those without. But unfortunately, there’s no right to an attorney in immigration court, and pro bono legal services are scarce. And the few hard-won protections minors do have are at risk of being undermined as Trump retakes office.
During his first term, President Trump tried to terminate the 1997 Flores agreement, which set standards for the care and release of children in federal immigration custody. He gutted asylum qualifications, removing domestic and gang violence as reasons to obtain protection. And most notoriously, his “zero-tolerance” policy forcibly separated over 5,000 children from their parents in immigration custody.
Under a policy called Title 42, many asylum applicants were turned away altogether, violating their due process. Under “Remain in Mexico,” applicants including children were forced to await asylum hearings in Mexico, exposing many to danger. And courts were hostile and caseloads were rushed through.
Ramos put it bluntly: “Immigration law has always been hard — attorneys call it a dumpster fire. Under the Trump administration, it was like trying to put out a dumpster fire with a liter of gasoline.”
For children seeking asylum, the mental and emotional toll of these legal procedures is compounded by language barriers, social marginalization, and fear of deportation.
These fears can also deter their sponsors, the relatives or volunteers who take them in while their case proceeds — and who are often undocumented themselves. It can even discourage them from accessing medical care, educational services, and food banksdue to fears of arrest.
The three experts I spoke to all agreed our immigration system is outdated and inefficient — but said reform should make it more welcoming, not restrictive.
Until then, we’ll need to band together and advocate for local and state governments to pass legislation defending immigrant communities — and for President Biden to take steps to protect migrants before Trump takes office. You can also help by donating to organizations that support immigrants.
Asylum is a matter of life or death for these kids. If we truly care about the safety and dignity of children, our immigration policies must reflect that commitment.
A Nation of Immigrants
Photo by Aaron Burson
The New York Times article about the mass deportation of about 11 million people begins with an analogy of those people encompassing a number of people four times the size of the population of Chicago (“Donald Trump’s Immigration Plans,” November 27, 2024). The Times, always ahead of the curve by pushing the hapless Harris/Walz ticket, along with a slavish dedication to identity politics and US wars, calls these masses of human beings “unauthorized immigrants.” The so-called unauthorized are people, but of no matter to the Times. My maternal grandfather would have been one of these people since he came to the US during the massive influx of immigrants from both Eastern and Southeastern Europe. He had escaped from the czarist military, which in most cases would have been a sentence of lifelong indentured servitude or death through militarism. When the war to end all wars, the First World War, faced him here, he chose not to become a citizen. It might be said that he was a draft resister. I knew about his history as I came of age and the Vietnam War raged.
“It won’t be easy. How will the government find all of these people? Where will they be held as officials process their cases? Will migrants’ home countries take them back? And will lawmakers approve all the funding required for this?” (New York Times, November 27, 2024). This is the Guardian on the Biden administration’s ongoing building spree of prisons to hold immigrants despite those private companies’ often horrific record of incarcerating people (December 6, 2024).
Guaranteeing that the US military won’t be used in any plan to round up immigrants that Trump hatches is absurd. There is the previous use of the military in rounding up and incarcerating Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II, when 120,000 citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent were held by Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. That that shame will not be visited again is a pipe dream, as there is ample evidence of roundups of immigrants in the US. Japanese-Americans were rounded up before and after the presidential executive order by both the FBI and the military. Trump’s plan to apprehend immigrants using these agencies is unknown. It may be that any attempt to use the military could be an example or test of the military’s willingness or unwillingness to go along with the Trump administration‘s dictates. The 146-year-old “Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorized by law” according to the Brennan Center For Justice. An executive order could be viewed by the military as legal justification for its use in any future apprehension of immigrants.
I made two calls to the public affairs division of the Pentagon in the past week to learn what the military’s position will be on the issue of immigrants. I received no reply from the Pentagon, but entered into a conversation with a Pentagon employee while seeking their position on this issue. The person at the Pentagon referred me to the public affairs officer and noted that when I explained the reason for my query that person said “I know where this is going.” She refused further comment and “where this was going” was the search for a statement from the Pentagon on its hypothetical role, if any, in the roundup or incarceration of immigrants.
I’m particularly interested in the protections and predicaments immigrants face in Massachusetts. A few years ago, in an atypical case, but one that may have some impact, a local immigrant was arrested, and I assume ultimately deported by the federal government (Berkshire Edge). A legal action had been brought against the immigrant in Massachusetts in 2018 regarding a case of alleged rape in 2017. What impact that charge had on the federal government’s decision to apprehend the immigrant is unknown. An inquiry in writing to the chairperson of the selectboard (an official government body similar to a town council), who was also the chairperson of the selectboard when the immigrant was arrested in a Berkshire hilltown in western Massachusetts by ICE, yielded no response.
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell asked her [Massachusetts Governor Healey] in an interview whether Massachusetts State Police would help if the incoming Trump administration asked about the assistance of the state in the apprehension of immigrants, to which Gov. Healey responded, “absolutely not.”
Gov. Healey noted in an interview that every “tool” needs to be used to protect Massachusetts residents (“Massachusetts governor vows to refuse Trump deportation requests: “Absolutely not,” abc3340News, November 7, 2024).
One of those tools may be responding to a question of the state’s potential role in the Trump administration’s possible apprehension and arrest of immigrants here, but that was not the case at the time of this writing. Calls I made to the governor’s office were not returned.
Trump plans to use “the military and law enforcement to detain the millions of people who are in the United States illegally” (New York Times, November 27, 2024). Countries that would receive these immigrants would have to agree with any plan to repatriate them. According to the Times, there are hundreds of thousands of migrants “with criminal records and previous removal orders.” Next, Trump will attempt to deport so-called “undocumented migrants with clean records” (New York Times, November 27, 2024). This part of his targeted group of immigrants would include “people with Temporary Protected Status from “specific countries.” Many cities and states have offered this class of people sanctuary.
Many undocumented people have legal protections and Trump wants to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to override the courts. The far-right Supreme Court will likely be on Trump’s side in attempts to deport immigrants.
According to the Times, the American Immigration Council estimates Trump’s plan will cost “$88 billion a year, twice the budget of the National Institutes of Health and four times NASA’s budget.” The plan, if carried out, will be a “social welfare” program for the military, who may refuse to participate, and other agencies such as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). How much of a repeat of children and others behind chain-link fences will ordinary people tolerate? Both the administrations of George W. Bush and of Barack Obama deported large numbers of immigrants illustrating how much of a bipartisan enterprise deportations are.
Why Trump’s focus on immigrants? I think immigrant issues have a two-fold draw for Trump. He began his first campaign with rants about so-called Mexican immigrant criminals. This was reminiscent of his focus and vitriol about the Central Park jogger case in 1989. Recall that Trump called for the death penalty against the young men who would later be exonerated. The second piece of the puzzle is that immigrants serve as Trump’s shiny object to entice some of his base while he carries out other programs. Hate sells and Trump is drawn to that issue.
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