Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
While most of the country prepares itself for the December holidays, millions of undocumented people refine their contingency plans in case Donald Trump’s mass deportations become reality after he assumes the presidency on January 20.
For at least half of the country, Trump’s win signifies another bad period they have to contend with for the next four years. But for others, like undocumented people and their families, it’s about the possibility that their lives could be profoundly upended. Their future, and that of their families, is in play.
That’s nothing new because, if I have learned anything throughout my years of contact with this sector of the population, it’s that — for the most part — they always have a plan at hand in case they are detained, especially if they have been in the United States for decades and have citizen children.
They have their documents on hand or prepare powers of attorney so that, in case one or both parents are detained or deported, a certain relative or guardian will take care of their kids. On May 12, 2008, during the George W. Bush presidency, Postville, Iowa was the scene of a mass raid at the meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors, where 400 immigrants were detained and 300 were accused of identity theft in order to expedite their deportation. Many of those deported took their U.S. citizen children with them.
I visited Postville on the first anniversary of the raid, and those who remained recounted horror stories about family separation and how necessary it is to have plans and legal documents with instructions because, at any moment, life can change. It’s almost like death.
But it never stops being disturbing that people with established lives, who are working and contributing millions of dollars in federal, state, and local taxes, have to live with the constant fear of being detained and, in the worst case of all, deported.
These days, the press highlights stories about Dreamers. Once again they are facing uncertainty larger than what they already experienced, and at the mercy of Trump’s wishes, who in his first administration tried to eliminate DACA, the executive order signed by Barack Obama in 2012 that extends them protection from deportation and work permits. DACA protection is only for those who renew their permits, since new applications are no longer being accepted since 2021, when a federal judge ruled against the program.
The Dreamers’ case is especially difficult because it deals with people who were brought to the United States when they were children, and this is the only country they consider to be home. Many are essential workers; they pay millions of dollars in taxes; they have established families and, at any rate, confront the uncertainty that could happen to them without DACA’s protection — of being detained and deported to countries that they don’t even know, or remember.
And while the next Trump administration claims it will deport “criminals,” Trump’s designated “border czar,” Tom Homan, affirms that no undocumented person is safe.
Currently there are some 535,000 DACA beneficiaries. To that add some 863,880 beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), from 16 countries. And 530,000 people have obtained the humanitarian parole available to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV). They are people about whom the government has personal data, and who pro-immigrant and civil rights groups fear will become targets for Trump’s mass deportation plans.
La Opinión reported speculation that immigrants in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program could be the first targets for detention.
“That’s 181,888 undocumented immigrants who are under direct monitoring by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, through various monitoring systems like GPS ankle monitors and cell phones with the SMARTLink application, which permit people to be located 24 hours a day,” reported the Los Angeles-based daily.
This month of festivities, and at the dawn of a new year, while others plan celebrations, there are millions of undocumented people who are workers, family members, neighbors, or friends who are preparing for the worst.
The original Spanish version is here.
