WASHINGTON (AP) – “Mass deportation now!” announced the signs at the Republican National Convention, fully embracing Donald Trump’s pledge to deport millions of immigrants in the largest deportation program in US history.
Some Republicans aren’t quite ready for that.
Lauren B. Peña, a Republican activist from Texas, said she felt uncomfortable hearing Trump’s mass deportations, along with terms like “illegals” and “invasion.” Like some Republicans in Congress who have developed balanced approaches to immigration, he hopes Trump will just screw up.
“He’s not going to deport every family that crosses the border, he means to deport criminals and sex offenders,” Peña said.
But Trump and his advisers have other plans. He is putting immigration at the heart of his campaign to retake the White House, pushing the Republican Party toward a belligerent strategy that dates back to the 1950s, when former President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched a deportation policy known as a racial slur — “Operation Wetback.” .”
When pressed for details on his plan in an interview with Time Magazine this year, Trump suggested he would use the National Guard and possibly even the military to target 15 to 20 million people — even though the government estimates in 2022 that 11 million immigrants will live in the United States without permanent legal status.
His plans have raised the stakes in this year’s election, beyond strengthening the southern border, a longtime conservative priority, to the question of whether America should make a fundamental shift in its approach to immigration.
After a historic high number of crossings on the southern border during the Biden administration, the Democrats have also moved to the right, often leading promises of border security before talking about relief for immigrants already in the country.
And as the November election nears, both parties are trying to reach out to voters like Peña, 33. Latino voters could be key in many swing states.
Trump won 35 percent of Hispanic voters in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and support for stronger border enforcement has grown among Hispanic voters. But an AP analysis of two consecutive polls by AP-NORC Public Affairs Research in June shows that about half of Hispanics have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Trump.
Still, Peña, who described himself as a multiracial Hispanic, has become a new and enthusiastic recruit in the GOP. He appealed to Trump after seeing people weakened by drugs at the public housing complex where he lives in Austin. He feels that government programs have failed low-income people and that recent immigration has squeezed public assistance, such as food stamps.
But Peña said he’s also concerned when his fellow Republicans discuss ideas like barring children without permanent legal status from public school.
“I’m Hispanic, it’s a tough subject,” she said. “I feel like we have to give these people a chance.”
Still, GOP lawmakers have largely embraced Trump’s plans. “It’s necessary,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a July interview at the conservative Hudson Institute.
However, some have shown quiet skepticism by suggesting more modest goals.
Sen. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, pointed to the more than 1 million people who have already received a final order of removal from an immigration judge, saying, “There is a difference between those who are currently in the process and those who have already received a decision in the process.”
Lankford, who negotiated the bipartisan border package that Trump helped defeat earlier this year, added that it would be a “huge” task both logistically and financially just to target this group.
Other Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, suggested that Trump in the White House prioritize immigrants with criminal records.
In fact, Trump took office in 2016 with similar promises of mass deportations, but succeeded in deporting only about 1.5 million people.
This time, however, there is a plan.
Trump has worked closely with Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins. Miller describes the Trump administration as working “with absolute determination” to achieve two goals: “Seal the border. Deport all illegals.”
To achieve this, Trump would revive travel bans from undesirable countries, such as Muslim-majority countries. He would launch a sweeping operation, sending in the National Guard to round up immigrants, hold them in massive camps and put them on deportation flights before they can file legal complaints.
In addition to this, Trump has also promised to end birthright citizenship – a 125-year-old right in the United States. And several of his top advisers, through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, have laid out a broad policy vision that would crack down on other forms of legal immigration. .
Under those plans, the Trump administration could also freeze temporary programs for more than a million immigrants, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, Ukrainians and Afghans fleeing recent conflicts, and others who receive temporary protection. unrest in their homeland.
The policy would have far-reaching disruptions in major sectors such as housing and agriculture, including key battleground states.
“If the more than 75,000 immigrants who do the hardest work in Wisconsin’s dairy and agriculture industries were gone tomorrow, the state’s economy would collapse,” said Jorge Franco, CEO of the Wisconsin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, who has pushed legislation that would allow citizenship for long-term residents, argued that large-scale deportations were now necessary because of recent increases in border crossings. President Joe Biden. But he also hoped Trump would see the difference between recent arrivals and long-time residents.
“There’s a group of people in Congress who are making sure the new administration understands that because there’s another aspect: the business community,” he said. “Building developers… and farmers, what do they say? They need hands.”
Meanwhile, Democrats feel Trump’s threats are now motivating Latino voters.
“The mass deportations put a lot of people on alert,” said María Teresa Kumar, CEO of Voto Latino, a leading voter registration organization that supports Democrat Kamala Harris.
Like many other groups aligned with Harris, Voto Latino has seen interest since he rose to the top of the Democratic ticket. Kumar said the organization has registered nearly 36,000 voters in the weeks since Biden’s resignation — almost the same as the first six months of the year.
In the heavily Latino House district in the southern tip of Texas, Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat, said voters want to see better control of the border, but at the same time, many also have friends or family members who do not have immigration documents. in order.
“A lot more could be done in terms of good policy to help control spikes at the border,” Gonzalez said. “But mass deportations give people heartburn.”
