The Return of Trump and Immigration

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to “close the border” on his first day in office. “The president and his legal team have four years to appoint new federal judges to change not only the operational landscape—more prosecution, detention, and deportation—but also the legal landscape of immigration enforcement,” writes John Washington in his November 10, 2024, essay for the NYR Online. “Humanitarian visas could disappear. Asylum protections will likely be further gutted, and more families intentionally separated. States may even be able to run their own immigration enforcement or deputize their own border forces.” 

For an interview with Washington, click here.  I found one passage especially worth noting:

“How has American public opinion on undocumented immigration—and the subject of immigration more generally—changed since you began reporting?

It’s become less nuanced and more hateful. Not that there was much nuance or sympathy before. Immigration was always a divisive issue, especially during political campaigns. But this year’s presidential race was unprecedented. We all remember how Trump and his supporters heaped vitriol onto migrant communities. But Kamala Harris, too, made much of her background as a prosecutor in a border state and her record of targeting transnational criminal organizations. Her approach to immigration policy was generally aggressive: she praised the Biden administration for raising the asylum threshold and cracking down on border crossings, and hardly mentioned expanding the pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people living in the US. Despite the near-constant bickering about the border, there was practically no discussion of the humanity or dignity of migrants.” (bold added).

KJ