Who does Trump plan to deport? Whoever Trump wants to deport (AP)
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, likely killing hundreds of thousands of residents and leaving hundreds of thousands more homeless. Recovery was slow, hampered in part by political unrest. In 2016, the island was hit by Hurricane Matthew, which left hundreds of Haitians dead. The unrest intensified and the country’s President was assassinated in 2021. A month later, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred, killing more than 1,000 people. Violence by criminal gangs spread, even against the government.
Given all the recent turmoil, the US government has on more than one occasion expanded the “temporary protected status” (TPS) to immigrants from Haiti. One was offered in January 2010 during the administration Obamain response to the earthquake. Another came into force in August 2021, during the government of Bidenin response to the second earthquake.
In between, Donald Trump He was president for four years. During his first year in office, allowed TPS protection for immigrants from Haiti to expirewhich meant that Nearly 60,000 immigrants from that country would have a limited period of time during which to leave the United States. During a private conversation with lawmakers in early 2018, he made clear why he might not have been forced to extend protection: He disparaged Haiti in vulgar terms, expressing his desire for immigrants to come instead from (stable and prosperous) countries like (predominantly white) Norway.
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to order the Government to deport millions of immigrants from the United States (REUTERS)
This was certainly eye-opening. The businessman’s career in national politics was built on the presentation of some immigrants – those who enter the United States from Mexico – as dangerous or undesirable. Other immigrants, including those admitted to take jobs at Trump Organization properties, were given permission. Trump and many on the right insisted they supported a proper legal immigrationbut, as with the immigrants from Haiti, they demonstrated that The priority was often to monitor immigrants who, in their opinion, deserved to stay. Trump’s Justice Department undertook an effort to find out which immigrants who had earned citizenship could see that benefit revoked.
All of this is important context for the central pillar of Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, with his promise that would order the government to deport millions of immigrants from the United States. The details of this proposal are often vague, as was the case when his running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vancewas asked about the idea during this week’s vice presidential debate. Vance insisted that the Administration would give priority for immigrants with criminal recordsbut he didn’t say much more.
However, he disputed the idea that immigrants from Haiti living in his state, immigrants who were given permission to enter the United States during the most recent TPS designation, should not necessarily be considered “legal” and therefore exempt from being asked to leave. He’s said this before, so it wasn’t exactly surprising.
Vance assured that immigrants who were given permission to enter the United States during the most recent TPS designation should not necessarily be considered “legal” (REUTERS)
In an interview with NewsNation On Wednesday, Trump was asked about these immigrants who now live in the city of Springfield, Ohio.
“What’s happening there is horrible,” Trump said. “You have a beautiful community, 52,000 people, and about 30,000 people were thrown into that community quickly,” he added. (For what it’s worth, the population was about 59,000 in 2023, with the number of immigrants from Haiti probably between 10,000 and 12,000.)
“Everything was nice. It was like a community from a movie and suddenly, in a short time, they have 32,000 more people there. Not working. can’t work”, he assured.
The journalist asked him if he would revoke TPS for those immigrants.
“Absolutely. “I would revoke it and return them to their country.”he responded.
The ostensible issue here is that Springfield has a large population of newly arrived immigrants who are putting pressure on the city and its government. (It is common for immigrants to join existing immigrant communities, given the support structures they offer.) But Trump’s solution is not to bolster Springfield’s resources, or even to find ways to better accommodate newcomers elsewhere.. There are many places – especially rural and Republican voters – where an influx of working-age residents would be an unmitigated blessing. But Trump’s solution, however, is to send them back to a country disrupted by instability and natural disasters.. It’s a punishment.
Trump’s solution to the immigration wave is to send these people back to their countries, disrupted by instability and natural disasters (EFE)
The former President’s response refutes his argument and that of his running mate, that they are persecuting immigrants who are in the country illegally and, much less, that their target is those who have committed crimes. This week, Vance and other Trump allies spread false claims about an influx of criminals under the Biden administration, an effort at scaremongering about immigrants in the United States that also revealed the extent to which criminality could be used as a pretext for deportation. Is an immigrant who has served a sentence related to gambling or obscenity someone we need to urgently expel from the country? Especially if, as was hypothesized to Vance in the debate, they have children who are American citizens? (Vance declined to say whether that would be a factor in deciding how to proceed with removing people from the country.)
It is well established that the process of identifying, detaining and removing millions of people from the country would be enormously difficult and destabilizing, both economically and for individual communities. What Trump and Vance’s claims have reinforced is that it would also be arbitrary, as legal immigrants deemed undesirable to the president and his supporters would be expelled, while other groups would remain relatively protected.
Actually, It has never been about protecting the country or American citizens.. If it had been, Trump would not be making false claims about the magnitude and danger of immigrants to the United States. The point, however, is that he finds it politically useful to make these false statements and that he seems to have a personal dislike of immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America.
These are the immigrants who are obviously most at risk, regardless of how diligently they followed the rules on their journey to the United States.
© 2024, The Washington Post.
