Trump’s Deportation Plan Could Bring Back Family Separations

Former President Donald Trump‘s proposed mass deportation plan could lead to a return of widespread family separations, with an estimated one in three Latinos at risk of being targeted, according to an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group.

Latino leaders warned Tuesday that the hardline policy would result in families “being ripped apart,” raising concerns about the human impact and social consequences of such an extensive crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Nearly 20 million people could be directly affected by the former president’s policy, either through their own deportation or separation from immediate family members, FWD.us found.

A smaller scale family-separation policy was abandoned by the first Trump administration in the face of a overwhelming public outcry.

“Maybe there are children who have a really good friend who is an immigrant who, because of Donald Trump’s promise, risks being deported,” Democratic California Senator Alex Padilla told reporters Tuesday.

“We’re talking about the teachers who teach our children being impacted by this, so many undocumented members of the workforce, small business owners whose livelihoods depend on the patronage of a lot of immigrants both documented and undocumented.”

Senator Padilla said that those who were “American in every way except a piece of paper”, having been raised in the U.S., faced being torn from their families. Around four million U.S. citizens have at least one undocumented parent, he added.

Mass deportation is a core policy of the GOP’s platform for 2024, with Trump promising millions would be removed from the country, starting the moment he returned to office.

“I make this pledge and vow to you, November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America,” Trump told supporters on Oct. 11, as he branded the mass-deportation program “Operation Aurora”, after the Colorado city which has faced ongoing issues with the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

“The border will be sealed. The invasion will be stopped. The migrant flights will end and Kamala’s app for illegals will be shut down immediately, within 24 hours,” he said of his first day in office.

Trump has not revealed much information on the logistics of his flagship policy, including how the court system would handle millions of deportation hearings. He has vowed to deploy the National Guard to assist with deportations, despite questions on the legal limits on military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

“The reality is that most of the people who would end up getting deported in any sort of mass deportation are people who are simply working in the U.S. labor force,” Stuart Anderson, National Foundation for American Policy executive director, previously told Newsweek.

“In fact, what is likely to happen is there will not there will not be an emphasis on removing criminals, but an emphasis on removing everyone to drive up the numbers to reach quotas.”

During Tuesday’s briefing, Janet Murguia, president of UnidosUS Action Fund, said American citizens would inevitably get swept up by Trump’s plan, adding that migrants make important contributions to the country, both economically and socially.

“It’s a threat to our economy, our values and our freedoms,” she said, raising concerns about what would happen if workers were removed en masse.

“Our economic contributions today, as a Latino community, represent the fifth largest economy in the world. Does former President Trump really understand what would happen to our economic interests in our country? This would be a self-inflicted wound to our economy.”

The advocacy groups said Latinos understood that issues within the immigration system needed addressing, but that the Trump plan was not the way to do it.

Vice President Kamala Harris has promised to push for more legal pathways for immigrants if she wins the White House, reflecting efforts by President Joe Biden to offer green cards to undocumented migrants who have been in the country for over a decade.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, told Newsweek that Harris’s policies alongside Biden had caused a humanitarian and national security crisis.

“Like President Trump said, he will make provisions for mixed-status families, and he will restore his effective immigration policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shockwaves to all the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history,” Leavitt said in an emailed statement.