Why Is U.S. Political Media Ignoring Trump’s Mass Deportation Promises?
American history shows such ideas are disastrous
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By Julio Ricardo Varela, The Latino Newsletter
Let’s be clear here.
The first two campaign promises of the 2024 Republican (Donald Trump) Party platform say the following in ALL CAPS:
SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION
CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY
There is no doubt. This 2024 election from the Trump side is all about making migrants fleeing danger faceless, soulless, and a national security threat. These Brown and Black figures are coming after U.S. Black and Brown jobs. They are terrorizing white Americans, even though it has been said so many times that migrant crime is a “myth.” Such points never get challenged as much as they should and is probably one of the biggest reasons why the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign is trying to say they are “tougher” on the border, harkening back to 1996, when President Bill Clinton made Republican Bob Dole look like an “open border” candidate.
Democratic immigration issues aside (I have written many opinion pieces calling them out for not having a bolder alternative to Trumpian policy), there is majority consensus showing that Americans (and particularly U.S. Latino swing state voters) favor a policy that is “tough” on the border and still allows an earned pathway to citizenship for certain groups. Harris took the politically expedient route when she supported this position during a packed Arizona rally last Friday.
“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it: comprehensive reform. That includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” Harris said.
It might be the policy that wins in 2024, though, because it is still hard to fathom that Americans will not learn from the failed forced removal examples from history to comprehend that calls for “mass deportation” (with official RNC signs too!) would be dangerous and disastrous.
Take this new video explainer from Krish O’Mara Vignarah of Global Refugee.
Eisenhower failed. So did Hoover. Why would this be any different? In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $96.7 billion in taxes. As much as Trump and his allies like to scare us all about losing jobs, without immigrants, this country’s economy would crumble. You can hem and haw about the immigration debate and also be one of those 55% of Americans who think that immigration should be curbed. But the moment that happens, the powerful (we’re number 1) American economy will be gone.
More importantly, migrants are not faceless. They are human beings, as imperfect as you and I. The latest Welcome the Wretched book by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández said it best: “Migrants are simply people. Like all people, migrants are complicated and contradictory. Instead of viewing migrants in their totality, immigration law focuses on their worst moments. For many migrants, immigration law emphasizes their crimes while undervaluing their deep ties to the United States.”
As my friend León Krauze so eloquently wrote this week for the Opinion section of The Washington Post:
If carried out, Trump’s planned mass deportation would leave nearly 4½ million children in the United States partially or wholly orphaned. The impact of mass deportation on families would be profound. In Florida, nearly 2 million U.S. citizens or non-undocumented residents live in households with at least one undocumented person; in California, it’s more than 4 million. The sudden disappearance of a parent or a main provider will be devastating: It is estimated that more than 900,000 households with at least one child who is a U.S. citizen will fall below the poverty line if the undocumented breadwinners in these families are deported.
This is the America we want? This is the America we believe in?
People may step up and confront this. A recent Associated Press story included this quote from Jorge Franco, the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, “If the 75,000-plus immigrants who perform the hardest of work in Wisconsin’s dairy and agriculture were gone tomorrow, the state economy would tank.”
But if U.S. political media continues to cover this election like an ESPN sporting event (Walz vs. Vance: Who’s more military? Stay tuned!) and not begin to consistently cover the fear of what mass deportation would mean, shame on us as Americans. Our beacon of democracy will be stained yet again.
Julio Ricardo Varela is an award-winning journalist, podcast host and the founder of The Latino Newsletter. Follow him on X (Twitter) and Threads.
How can we convince people that our economy depend on these immigrants and that they are people too just like you and me.
No one is illegal. I have no idea why they’d want to send the hardest working people away. I live in California. Our farms and crops would suffer tremendous losses.