HARRIS’ BORDER VISIT OFFERS OPPORTUNITY TO CONTRAST VISIONS: SOLUTIONS VS. DIVISION
VP Harris is set to visit Arizona today and deliver remarks at the border, where we expect her to highlight that the volume of border encounters has recently plummeted and to continue her strategy of calling out Donald Trump’s preference for politics over solutions, encapsulated by his cynical obstruction of the bipartisan, enforcement-heavy Senate bill. But she also has an opportunity to more fully connect with the broad majority of Americans’ immigration and border views and meet the political moment by not only focusing on her vision of an orderly border but also by highlighting her support for Dreamers, legal immigration, and citizenship for long-settled immigrants, as well as by offering sharp contrasts with Trump, including consequences of his mass deportation scheme and his reliance on vile tactics that seek to divide us. VP Harris has already modeled this approach, recently noting that “we need a comprehensive plan” that includes both border management and “pathways for people to earn citizenship.” Said America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas ahead of today’s visit: “The Trump/Vance vile strategy to keep the focus on race and immigration is designed to distract attention away from their role in ending Roe, imperiling Americans’ healthcare protections and the other extreme Republican policy positions. But on immigration, it’s a moment to fight back against the ugly and transparent attempts to divide us. America is better than this and VP Harris can and should stand up for and chart a different vision for this nation.” Read more here.
TRUMP TEAM’S SCHEME REVEALED: DEPORT IMMIGRANTS WITH LEGAL STATUS
The Trump campaign has made clear that “no one is off the table” when it comes to their promised unsparing and “largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” In recent remarks continuing to fan the flames of hatred against his own constituents in Ohio, J.D. Vance said he would continue to call Haitian immigrants residing legally in the state “an illegal alien.” As David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo assessed, “the rhetoric that the Republican campaign is staking the race on continues to blur the line between legal and illegal immigration in a way that puts immigrants of all statuses at risk.” This vile promise to deport Haitian Americans who are here legally is telling and best understood alongside the Trump campaign and Project 2025’s attacks on a number of immigration policies, from DACA to the Biden administration’s Keeping Families Together process, which has been blocked under recent litigation. “The Trump agenda is clear and consequential: make as many immigrants as possible deportable, no matter their current legal status or their deep roots in this nation,” responded Vanessa Cárdenas. “From Haitians with TPS to Dreamers with DACA to spouses of U.S. citizens, it’s a cruel and violent vision that would rip apart American families, communities and the U.S. economy.” Read more here.
BROAD DENUNCIATION OF VANCE’S ANTI-IMMIGRANT LIES
Vance has refused to backtrack from his disgusting lies targeting Haitian immigrants in Springfield, but not without forceful denunciations from a broad slate of prominent voices – including his state’s own Republican governor (and a supporter of his campaign). ”This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there,” Gov. Mike DeWine, a native of Springfield, wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times. Vance, who is Catholic, has also been scolded by Catholic bishops in Ohio, who called for “respect and dignity” for Haitian neighbors. “As the residents of Springfield, Ohio, struggle with violent threats and life disruptions fueled by unfettered social media posts, we exhort the Catholic faithful and all people of goodwill not to perpetuate ill will toward anyone involved based on unfounded gossip,” the bishops wrote. In a scathing editorial, hometown paper Springfield News-Sun called Vance’s intentional lies “unbecoming of a U.S. Senator and violates the public’s trust in the esteemed office.” And in his op-ed at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, AV legal advisor David Leopold linked Vance’s lies that Haitian families are stealing and eating pets to dark and ominous tropes of the past. “Blood libels fueled numerous pogroms against Jews throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times The Nazis used blood libels as a central theme of their antisemitic propaganda. Stunningly, blood libel is alive and well in American politics today,” he wrote. Read more here.
TRUMP-VANCE AMPLIFY THE GOAL OF MASS DEPORTATIONS, WITH XENOPHOBIA AT THE CENTER
In her weekly column, America’s Voice consultant Maribel Hastings writes that the Trump-Vance ticket is expanding the scope of its mass deportation vision by targeting Haitian immigrants legally residing in the U.S. while at the same time denying these deportations will harm the economy. Trump “does not recognize the devastating effect that the deportation of 5% of the U.S. workforce — the percentage of workers who are undocumented — would have on the country’s economy. That is some 22% of all farm workers, 15% of construction workers, and 8% of workers in the manufacturing industry.” Hastings notes the notorious mass workplace raid that targeted a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in 2008. Some 400 were detained and most were deported. Many were forced to uproot their U.S. citizen children. “America’s Voice visited Postville in 2009, one year after the raid. The town—which had come to life thanks to the presence and work of immigrants—was still dealing with the aftereffects on a humanitarian and economic level,” Hastings writes. The company, which had been a top employer in the town, ultimately declared bankruptcy. “If only there were a way to unite the supply and demand for workers in a regular and orderly way, where both sides benefit, in a process free of drama and, in the most extreme cases, death,” Hastings concludes. “There is. It’s called legislative immigration reform. But politicking, demagoguery, extremism, and racism are keeping it from becoming a reality.” Her column was also published in several outlets, including La Opinión, El Diario NY, and Radio Bilingüe. Read her column in English here and Spanish here.
VILIFYING IMMIGRANTS HAS BEEN AN ELECTORAL LOSER FOR THE GOP. WE HAVE THE RECEIPTS
Following Trump’s 2016 win, Republicans believed that they had found the winning issue: bashing immigrants. In just the current election cycle alone, Republicans up and down the ballot have already spent over a half a billion dollars on hardline xenophobic fear-mongering. Some in the media also seem convinced that this is a winning strategy. But despite the increased investment into nativist attacks, the GOP’s electoral strategy of aggressive, xenophobic demagoguery has failed at the ballot box for Republicans in every cycle since – and we’ve got the receipts. Just look at 2022, when Trump aide Stephen Miller appeared on conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson’s show to lay out what he believed was the winning GOP message that year: “I’m for deporting illegal aliens and you’re not, so I win and you lose.” Miller then ran a superPAC that spent over $50 million on ads to back that up, with some in the media apparently believing his insistence about an imminent red wave. His candidates, however, lost in New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. “Now, Republicans are spending even more money on an even more extreme message. But, their ads rarely mention the centerpiece issue of mass deportation. That’s a big tell,” writes America’s Voice consultant Joe Sudbay. “Because when people learn more, it causes revulsion as we’ve seen in multiple polls.” Read more here.
STOP THE HATE
Dehumanizing lies and conspiracies fueling fears and divisions also stoke the possibility of more political violence in Springfield and beyond. Unfortunately, we’ve already seen the deadly, downstream consequences of dangerous rhetoric in El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and elsewhere. Elected leaders bear a responsibility to stop the hate before it’s too late. Click here to share our graphic telling elected leaders that anti-immigrant hate has no place in our communities.
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
A group of youth formerly separated from their loved ones under the Trump administration’s cruel and traumatic family separation policy have been sharing their harrowing stories as part of the “Same Story” campaign. These young people – some as young as 12 – are bravely speaking out because they fear a story like theirs could play out again. Billy was just nine when he was ripped from his dad’s arms by the Trump administration and sent thousands of miles away to a facility in New York. His dad remained detained in Arizona. He said that after a month he was finally sent back to Arizona but could only see his dad through a glass window. While they were eventually reunited, he’s afraid that an untold number of children could face this same trauma if Trump returns to office in January 2025. “I’m telling this story now because we cannot keep having that problem,” he says in a video. Please click here to watch and share Billy’s “Same Story” testimony. In a recent report for Noticias Telemundo, journalist Paola Ramos speaks to a family that also fears separation under a potential second Trump administration. “Just thinking that we could be separated as a family” is incomprehensible, one mom tells Ramos. Click here to watch a preview of Ramos’ Noticias Telemundo report.
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