New Orleans We’re on the countdown to the inauguration and the coming years of Trump II, so a huge cloud of uncertainty is hanging over millions of immigrants in the United States, because of Trump’s deportation threats and indications of a return to Phoenix Sheriff Arpaio-style interrogations and harassment over any suspected of being undocumented. The status of the so-called Dreamers, who are children who have been under deferred action status, having been brought to America as children by their parents, is also unclear.
The Trump team surely knows these are big numbers. A huge public school system like that of New York City’s, which is the largest in the country, has more than 40,000 immigrant children enrolled in classes. The scale of the issue for them is unmatched, but it filters down to a vast majority of the big and small school systems in the country, both public and private, from elementary to university. There may be 12 million or more undocumented immigrants in the US now. Next to an overall population of over 300 million, that number isn’t overwhelming, but it is critical in many occupations from agricultural to chicken plucking and more.
None of this is news. The numbers haven’t changed much over the last decade. The big issue for the Trumpers that has propelled the overall concern about immigration focuses on the border. That’s not a hard drum to beat. It’s a long way from most people who aren’t living along the Rio Grande. The images and optics are rough, even though the numbers have decreased incredibly.
They have made hay on this issue, but they are forgetting some important things about this widespread population not on the border, but across the country. It is hard to demonize people who are your neighbors, co-workers, and friends or for that matter students in the same classes in your college, high school, scout troop, or church. We’ve seen case after case where people have been given sanctuary, where neighbors have come together to prevent ICE from implementing extractions, and more. If they thought holding families and children at the border in Trump I broke badly for them politically, they haven’t seen anything like how badly trying to deport people from workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools will be opposed and resisted. Schools are going to stop agents at the door. Businesses may deny entry except for just cause. Churches may once again provide sanctuary. Many cities, counties, and parishes will not participate in doing immigration work that leads to deportations.
C. Wright Mills, the well-known sociologist, famously noted the campaigns develop and power is built when an issue goes from “the personal to the political.” The border isn’t personal, so fearmongering has salience. But the more immigrants we have in the country, the longer they have been here and established themselves in the community, the more that forcible deportation of individuals and families will become very personal. The faces here won’t be some marauding criminal, but a child with a schoolbag, a mother with her kids, and someone working nearby who shops at your store and waves to you as they drive to work.
Trump, Bannon, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, and the rest of their gang aren’t ready for this, and they won’t be able to take it.