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Mass deportation – at least in theory – is apparently popular among the American people.
So over and over again, Trump and his allies have loudly touted their plans to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, initially focusing on those with criminal records. In doing so, they’ve redirected the US public’s attention toward their “shock and awe” tactics that led to thousands of arrests across the country in less than a week.
But as all eyes turn to these high-profile enforcement efforts, the new administration from its very first moments has also been relentlessly, if more quietly, targeting people trying to come to the US legally, systematically dismantling safety nets meant to protect the world’s most vulnerable individuals and families, who are already suffering because of it.
Some of the programs that Trump has quickly scrapped are legacy systems that have long enjoyed bipartisan support; others are Biden-era innovations intended to provide a more orderly alternative to those risking their lives to slip across the desert or through the Rio Grande.
The Biden administration’s approach was deeply flawed and often inhumane in so many aspects yet it now seems startlingly reasonable and compassionate by comparison. All of those legal pathways are in effect gone, at least for now – and their demise has left many thousands of people who followed US government guidance stranded, hopeless and in danger.
The first to go was the federal government’s CBP One phone app. Almost as soon as Trump was sworn into office, officials shut off the app’s capabilities for immigrants and asylum seekers to schedule appointments and enter the United States with legal permission. Around 30,000 people with existing appointments lost them, even though some were already standing at the US-Mexico border, ready to cross.
Next came a flurry of restrictions through Trump’s day one executive orders. Asylum at the US’s borders was categorically banned. Private sponsorship programs that allowed everyday Americans to financially support at-risk people and bring them to the US were terminated, or at least put on ice. And the US’s celebrated resettlement program, where highly-vetted refugees come to the US for a fresh start, was suspended for months … maybe indefinitely.
As a result, more than 10,000 refugees had their scheduled travel to the US cancelled. Those already stateside and waiting for reunification with family members were shocked when their loved ones were no longer permitted to come. And, egregiously, Afghans fleeing Taliban rule – including unaccompanied children – were once again abandoned by the federal government, just as they had been during the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Soon after, resettlement agencies received the news that they were to halt their federally funded services, such as job support and housing assistance, that help refugees already in the US successfully acclimate. Likewise, the Department of Justice ordered legal service providers to stop giving immigrants and asylum seekers in detention or at court even the most basic legal support on the federal government’s dime. One of the programs that was shut down had helped children to retain counsel, so they didn’t have to represent themselves in sometimes life-or-death proceedings.
At the same time, immigration enforcement authorities have the green light to process people who entered legally through CBP One or some of the private sponsorship programs for a fast-tracked deportation where they may never even go in front of a judge, seemingly ignoring their ongoing legal protections to live and work in this country.
Yet another solution that’s now defunct: Biden’s Safe Mobility Offices. To keep people from just turning up at the US-Mexico border, federal officials had worked with Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Guatemala to mount an initiative in South and Central America that both educated would-be immigrants about the legal pathways available to them and approved people who were eligible for travel onward to the US.
It was one of the few truly successful programs that the previous administration created through its carrot-and-stick approach toward global migration.
That approach had been twofold – create options like the Safe Mobility Offices, CBP One, or private sponsorship for people to arrive legally in the US, then punish those who didn’t use them. Trump, by contrast, has adopted a more singular strategy: keep everyone out, and especially those who need help.
Under the US government’s new outlook, the question does not seem to be whether people are coming legally. Is the question becoming, instead, simply who can afford to become American? Who has the right skin color to become American? Who is already privileged enough to become American?
Increasingly for those who don’t fit the bill, there is no “right way” to come. Trump and his allies are making sure of that.
