California Rep. John Duarte’s party gleefully waved “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” signs at their national convention in July, making clear that mass deportation is the signature issue for the GOP in 2024. It’s a promise to create a show-me-your-papers force to raid neighborhoods and workplaces, separating American families, deporting DACA recipients, and wrecking the economy for working people. However, while Donald Trump refuses to answer who will be targeted, the plans are out there. There will be a loss of paychecks. Our food supply would be at risk. Millions of Dreamers, essential workers, and parents of U.S. citizen children would be affected. Many of them call Rep. Duarte’s 13th Congressional District home. Despite this, he still supports Trump. We need to know where Rep. Duarte stands.
Does Rep. Duarte stand with the 580,000 DACA recipients who know only the U.S. as their home? Trump has promised to round up and purge hundreds of thousands of immigrants protected by the successful and popular DACA program – including nearly 165,000 in Rep. Duarte’s home state. Among those purged under this mass deportation agenda would be roughly 20,000 DACA recipients who are teaching our nation’s kids. They include Ivonne Orozco, who was named a Teacher of the Year in 2018. She’s also an inspiration to many of her students. “For many, I am the first Spanish-speaking person they know who has gone to college,” she told CBS News. “So they look to me for answers they maybe can’t get at home.” Trump, who has Rep. Duarte’s endorsement, wants to put her and a lot of teachers like her in camps on the road to deportation.
Does Rep. Duarte stand with the 4.5 million U.S. citizen kids who live with an undocumented parent? Mass deportation is mass family separation, and Rep. Duarte has remained silent on the nationalization of the kinds of separations that were widely condemned in 2018. One estimate found that 4.4 million US citizen children who live in a mixed status household could be affected by this mass deportation plan. Under the plan, recession, inflation, and massive job loss will hit the kitchen table hard for working families. However, children will also leave school to find an empty house. “The sudden disappearance of a parent or a main provider will be devastating,” The Washington Post reported. “It is estimated that more than 900,000 households with at least one child who is a U.S. citizen will fall below the poverty line if the undocumented breadwinners in these families are deported.” However, the emotional trauma of tearing a parent from their child is not so easily calculable.
Does Rep. Duarte stand with the millions of essential workers critical to construction, agriculture, home care, and medicine? Trump has promised to round up and purge from the country all of the at least one million undocumented farm workers who feed us and sustain our food supply, 1.6 million construction workers who are constructing our future, more than 140,000 undocumented workers who specialize in childcare, personal care, and home health, and thousands of frontline workers who work to protect our health and safety. They include Maria Barahona, a home care provider who cares for two senior citizens, including a U.S. military veteran. “These individuals have dedicated their lives to their families, their communities, and their country, and it’s my job to make sure they receive the dignified care they deserve,” she said. Trump wants to deport her – and Rep. Duarte has said nothing.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric, support for legalization remains high. Gallup recently found that 70% of U.S. adults favor the legalization of the undocumented community, with 81% of Americans supporting citizenship for Dreamers. And when Americans find out about the details of mass deportation, who would be targeted, and the human and economic tolls it would take on the nation, they are repelled. Yet Rep. Duarte has failed to rebuke Trump’s plans. Voters should know whether Rep. Duarte stands with their district’s constituents or Trump and his dystopian vision.
