Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice joined Jess Craven from Chop Wood, Carry Water to discuss how the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda is negatively impacting all corners of America, from immigrant communities to Latino voters to the national economy. Watch the full conversation here.
Below are some of key the takeaways:
1. 2024 Election Warnings
The anti-immigrant rhetoric of the 2024 campaign was a preview of what Trump envisioned for America, Cárdenas said during her appearance. From Trump’s mass deportation promises to Republican-aligned campaigns spending over $680 million on more than 1,600 unique TV ads that mentioned anti-immigrant messaging, “we knew what was coming.”
“We all knew what Project 2025 was all about when it came to immigration. And, of course, most of us have gone through the first Trump administration. So we knew what the agenda was going to be like for Trump and Stephen Miller, who is really the mastermind behind the policies that we’re seeing play out today.”
2. Latino Voters Shifted to the Right in 2024 Due to the “Perfect Storm”
While Trump and the Republican Party made clear their mass deportation agenda throughout the presidential campaign, Latino voters were among the many Americans who shifted to the right in the 2024 election. Cárdenas explained that like all other American voters, Latino voters were concerned about the economy and there was deep frustration about our broken immigration system.
“For those of us that were tracking sort of both the economic anxiety coupled with the unfairness of the immigration system, which is broken, and the frustration that Latino voters have with Democrats that they haven’t delivered, I think it created the perfect storm.”
3. The Last 10 months: Trump’s Mass Deportation Obsession in Full Swing
Looking back on the last ten months, the full “velocity” of the implementation of Trump’s mass deportation agenda is really “eye-opening,” not just on Latino communities, but for many Americans, Cárdenas said. Couple that with the fact that Trump has not delivered on his promise to lower grocery prices and other daily costs and is “taking legality away from people.” Cárdenas called it a “big red flag… really scared Latino voters.”
She emphasized that it is not just Latino and immigrant communities that are scared by mass deportation and the militarization of our communities. Wide swaths of Americans from many backgrounds have been speaking out because they are angry and know that Trump’s mass deportation obsession, and the trampling of due process and civil liberties, is not consistent with our values as a nation.
“And I think all Americans…when you think about the due process, in America…your rights are respected and officials follow the law”.
Craven noted that her first viral video after the 2024 election already gave her a huge indication that people were starting to worry about what Trump’s second term would look like and what it would mean for communities.
“It almost felt like… People woke up the morning after the election because I told you I had made a video about the economic impacts of mass deportation before the election. And it was one of my most popular videos ever.”
She could tell that “some trance was broken, and everybody started to realize.”
Craven acknowledged that as a white woman she can’t fully know the fear that immigrant and Latino communities are currently experiencing, but as a resident of Los Angeles, she is seeing Trump’s mass deportation agenda in full swing, most notably in Trump unleashing the U.S. military and federal immigration agents in her city.
“He launches immediately into this horrifying, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, brutal , constitution-trampling campaign…There were ICE raids all over Los Angeles yesterday. We had 50 people abducted yesterday. I mean, it’s been a nightmare. It’s a nightmare for me as a white woman. I cannot imagine being a member of the Latino community right now. And so, yeah, it has been this horrifying year. We have seen a lot of Americans really standing up beautifully, but it’s been terrible”.
For both Cárdenas and Craven, these first ten months of Trump’s presidency have sadly seen their fears realized. Immigrants are being deported without due process, U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents are being detained because of how they look and the accent in which they speak, families are being torn apart, and American cities have been occupied by American troops. But Americans are also “waking up” and are not going to back down easily from this abuse of power. There is still hope. And this fight is worth it because Americans believe this country is still worth fighting for.
4. Stories Matter
Cárdenas credits her fellow Americans for not just speaking out loudly against the cruelty, but for also acting loudly against it. Peaceful protests are crucial – just look at the historic “No Kings” protests from October. They are also putting this support into further action by coming together and finding direct ways to defend their immigrant neighbors, including groups that aren’t typically immigration-related. These Americans have been “organizing on the ground, forming committees” to come together.
“Just the way in which communities have organized to support their immigrant neighbors and friends and coworkers. And that has been so amazing to see. And I think it’s in these moments where we see the best of America and the America that all of us that came to this country choose to believe in.”
Cárdenas also acknowledged that the brutal images of immigrants and American citizens being harassed and detained are “penetrating” and are equally “important.”
“Americans that are standing up and are capturing these images on their phones, as well as people like you that are…bringing attention to this in a way that I don’t think traditional media has done before…it’s just really penetrating. And it’s really, really important, you know, to really capture the cruelty.”
5. What Did the 2025 Election Results Mean?
The 2025 election results made this clear: voters are rejecting Trump’s agenda. Not only did Democrats win huge in statewide races in New York City, Virginia, and New Jersey, but voters showed up in smaller local races that resulted in the Democratic Party having historic wins. In Georgia, two Democrats won in the non-federal statewide office of the five-person public utility regulator, the first two to do so since 2006. In Pennsylvania, three Democratic state Supreme Court justices retained their positions, despite millions of dollars being poured in by opposition. In Mississippi, state Democrats won three Mississippi legislative seats and broke the Republican two-third majority stronghold in the Senate for the first time in over a decade. Latino voters in particular snapped back from the rightward direction seen in last year’s election. With a poor economy and costs of living increasing, voters are angry with Trump’s empty promises and with the cruel deportation agenda playing out in their communities and all over the United States. For voters, Trump and the Republican Party are going “too far.”
“When the CNN exit poll asked Latino voters how they felt about what Trump was doing, and, you know, in California, 63% of all voters said that he was going too far, and 70% of Latino voters said he was going too far. In Virginia, 56% of voters said too far, and 77% of Latino voters said the same thing.”
Latino voters’ strong swing back to the left was particularly notable in this year’s elections, Cárdenas noted. Cárdenas noted interviews with voters “who sat out the elections last year” and who have been in tears after watching their communities “be torn apart.” They’ve said that they were voting this time around for this reason.
“I think it was a resounding message from Latino voters that this is not what they signed up for…[Trump] messing up the economy. He is going after our family members. …. He is not respecting hospitals and churches… ICE is going into schools, preschools even.”
Voters are seeing their fellow American citizens getting detained by federal immigration officials to veterans being deported and US citizen children being separated or forced to leave their country. But despite voters rejecting Trump’s mass deportation agenda, he has been unrepentant when it comes to the violent raids on display: “They haven’t gone far enough,” he recently told 60 Minutes after the 2025 election.
6. Moving Forward to 2026
As Trump has signaled, his destructive mass deportation agenda will not stop. In fact, it’s only escalating. On the heels of the recent enforcement actions in Charlotte, Chicago and Los Angeles, the Department of Homeland Security announced that New Orleans would be next. The Trump administration is only going to expand its militarization efforts into our major cities across the U.S. This stands in stark contrast to what voters want. Americans not only reject Trump’s mass deportation agenda, they support a pathway to legalization and support for immigration is at an all time high.
Cárdenas wants Democrats to understand that polling shows that Americans want solutions. They must push forward with balanced, humane solutions over the chaos and instability of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
“And I think Democrats need to have, again, a solution that resonates with the majority of Americans…we believe the solution is a combination of, yes, let’s address the public safety concerns, and yes, we need to have an orderly process. We need that. It’s important to have a functional system. But we also need to create paths to legality for the people that are here and have been here for decades, as well as a way for people to come in the future.”
We need Democrats to be pushing towards solutions on this issue – rather than ignore it.
“So my hope for next year is, again, that Democrats will stand up, for this community, fight for this community, not just on the economy, but also on immigration, because it is very much linked and present solutions that resonate with most Americans.”
