Immigration groups ‘doing everything we can’ amid Trump deportation threat
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As the incoming president pledges a crackdown, activist groups anticipating migrant raids are preparing to resist. Almost immediately after Donald Trump took office in 2017, he directed his administration to begin rounding up and deporting immigrants living in the country without authorization. He implemented a travel ban that caused chaos at airports, leaving families, students and scholars stranded. He also attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields hundreds of thousands of people brought to the country as children from deportation and imposed a “zero-tolerance” at the US-Mexico border that led to the separation of thousands of families.
![[Lauren Gambino]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/Lauren_Gambino.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Many immigration advocates fear that the next four years could be even worse. “The stakes are so much higher,” said Cathryn Paul, public policy director at Casa, an immigrant advocacy organization with a presence across the mid-Atlantic. Across the country, immigrant advocates, activists and legal aid groups are preparing to resist Trump’s pledge to deport millions of people living in the country without authorization – and his threat to end programs shielding tens of thousands of immigrants in the US on a lawful but temporary basis. To implement his sprawling enforcement agenda, Trump has appointed a team of immigration hardliners.
Though the incoming administration has yet to offer specifics, Trump has said he is prepared to activate the US military to assist with deportations. His “border czar”, Tom Homan, has threatened to withhold federal funds to states that refuse to cooperate, and when asked during an interview if there was a way for mass deportations not to separate families with mixed immigration statuses, he replied: “Families can be deported together.” (US citizens cannot be deported, but could choose to leave voluntarily.).
