The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will likely end under President-elect Donald Trump’s next term. What comes next is up to all of us.
Houston activists participate in a demonstration calling for a clear path to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients outside of the US District Courthouse on July 19, 2021, in Houston, Texas.(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)
Since his election win, Trump has laid bare his plans for mass deportations and confirmed his intention to deport millions of immigrants and US citizen children who live in mixed-status families. While giving contradictory comments on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and its future to distract from the true depravity of his plans, Trump said he thinks DACA recipients should be allowed to stay in the United States. If that’s the case, it raises the question, why hasn’t Trump done anything to defend the policy?
The real answer is because the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is on its final leg, and Trump knows it. If he truly wanted to let DACA youth stay in the place they call home, he would demand his henchmen drop their baseless lawsuit that seeks to end DACA for good at the Fifth Circuit, led by Texas attorney general and Trump abettor Ken Paxton. But he hasn’t, because he has been trying to kill the program since 2017. He’s not interested in saving it now.
Ending DACA would support the president-elect’s ultimate goal: to carry out the most extensive mass deportations our country has ever seen and make as many people as he can targets for deportation.
Ending DACA, in particular, would leave over half a million community members at risk of deportation and denied the freedom to work and provide for themselves and their families. There’s also the economic impact of getting rid of DACA. It would cost the United States up to $648 billion, and state and local governments as much as $150 billion, in future revenue losses.
Now, as Black, brown, working-class immigrant communities face another Trump administration and Republican trifecta, we must ask: How will our allies stand up to protect immigrants in their communities from Trump’s attacks?
The truth is, Trump’s mass deportations plans aren’t rational, good for the public as he claims, or based on sound policy. His plans have nothing to do with supporting the economy, helping working-class communities, or improving our country’s immigration system. Instead, Trump’s strategy is to scapegoat entire groups of people to further sow division and hate in an effort to distract from the fact that he and his billionaire cronies make a profit off of expansion of detention camps, immigrant labor, and so much more, all while the average taxpayer will foot the bill on mass deportation and detention. Already, Trump allies in Congress are making efforts to wastefully spend taxpayer dollars by trying to allocate a whopping $100 billion for mass deportation when it comes time for the government to pass its next spending bill in the spring.
We know what is coming, and it is no exaggeration to say this will cost people their lives. Fighting back against Trump’s authoritarian policies, his fear-mongering, and his divisive and hateful rhetoric remains a long-term goal, but our focus must also be on the immediate and what is needed right now to protect our communities most at risk.
Even now, the Biden administration could take action and reinforce critical firewalls to mitigate the impact of Trump’s agenda before he takes office, or at least make it harder for him to violently ravage our communities in his attempt to use the military to deport people. That includes freezing all ICE facility expansions, prioritizing the urgent and rapid processing of as many affirmative relief and renewal applications as possible, and extending Temporary Protected Status designations.
State and local electeds also hold tremendous power in this moment to defend immigrant communities and reject Trump’s agenda before and as it unfolds. Following the lead of lawmakers in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, state and local officials must be prepared now to fortify their cities as safe havens for immigrants.
The people impacted by Trump’s agenda won’t just be those fleeing persecution at the border, but also your children’s school teachers and undocumented classmates, your coworkers with temporary immigration status, people who have helped organize unions in your cities, or who have marched for racial justice alongside you, the woman who bags your groceries, the man who delivers packages to your doorstep, and your friends and neighbors you have known and loved for decades.
There are 6.3 million households—more than 22 million people—who will be affected by mass deportation, and that is only counting those who are impacted directly. It says nothing of the ripple effect Trump’s mass deportations will have on communities or on businesses across the country.
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None of us is made safer because Trump has gone after the undocumented mom selling candy inside the subway station, the farmworker out in the fields gathering produce, the small-business owner, or the DACAmented student trying to graduate and build a life for themselves and their family. But our lives and our safety all become increasingly less safe when our country’s leaders are willing to spend billions of dollars destabilizing the very places we call home and destroying the fabric of the communities we have built together.
That’s why it will also take all of us, including everyday Americans, to do something; allies who are ready to show up for their neighbors, regardless of immigration status. Whether it is speaking to your employers or school administrators to make sure there are safeguards in place to protect your immigrant peers and coworkers from federal agents coming to your worksite or campus, or getting organized with local groups working to lobby your state and local electeds for greater protections, it is going to take collective acts of courage and love for one another to defeat Trump’s agenda and to move toward a future where all of us have the freedom to stay in our homes, to work, and to thrive.
Bruna SollodBruna Sollod is a former DACA recipient and the senior political director of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country.