But ‘migration’ think tank believes policy will be “very hard to implement”
The promise of mass deportation of illegal immigrants made by newly-elected US President Donald Trump could hit “sanctuary cities” like Newark, with many Portuguese, the think tank Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has told Lusa.
Newark, located in the US state of New Jersey and home to one of the most significant Portuguese communities in the United States, is one of several “sanctuary cities” in the country, where there are local and state laws that protect the undocumented population and end up being a refuge for people who have not yet managed to regularise their situations.
MPI’s immigration policy analyst, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, believes that even these “sanctuary cities” could become the target of operations by the US federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“It’s certainly possible. I think we’ll start to see – and many states already have – legislation that prohibits their local authorities from cooperating with ICE, but that doesn’t mean that agents can’t go into those cities, although cooperation from local authorities generally makes their job much easier,” said the migrations expert.
“I think we’ll see an uneven pattern among states, depending on whether or not they’re willing to cooperate with the federal government. But for those sanctuary cities, the risk will probably still be there.”
One of Donald Trump’s overriding campaign promises has been to carry out the “largest mass deportation in history”.
Outgoing president Joe Biden went so far as to acknowledge that the policy of controlling the entry of immigrants across the border with Mexico needed to be revised – an admission that ended up shaping the race for the White House and almost certainly contributed to the defeat of the Democratic Party.
In her interview with Lusa, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh said that, in spite Trump’s promises, it will not be easy to put his deportation plan into practice – due to the high level of resources required, both in terms of financial costs, and manpower.
It would involve resources to actually meet these immigrants where they are. Carrying out a deportation requires detention space; it requires communication with the country of origin to take back its citizen; it requires an airplane to remove the person and all these things are very expensive. Current resources would not allow for the kind of deportation that Trump is talking about,” she said.
The American Immigration Council has estimated that mass deportation on the scale envisaged by Trump could cost the country $315 billion dollars (€299 billion euros), including wider economic costs such as the impact on the job market.
In favor of his plan, Donald Trump has the fact that the Republican Party won full control of Congress in the November 5 elections, which will give him greater access to federal money to fund ICE, Lusa points out.
There are around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, according to Department of Homeland Security estimates from 2022, the most recent year with available data – although Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the real number “is about double”.
Despite the possibility that Republicans could secure increased funding for deportations, the MPI expert stressed that it would still be necessary to find and hire employees to join ICE, a situation that may not be easy.
“In addition, deportations would require coordination with the citizen’s country of origin and there are some countries with which the US does not have very good diplomatic ties. So it’s much more difficult to remove people to those countries. There are also other states that simply don’t have the infrastructure to accept large numbers of their citizens. All of this will delay or make deportations more difficult,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh. “There are so many different pieces to this puzzle that would make it difficult to implement deportations on the scale that Trump is promising,” she added.
Nonetheless, the talk that has taken hold in the country about mass deportations “has really led to a huge sense of fear” among immigrants.
Jornal de Notícias meantime has found an illegal Portuguese immigrant, who not only supports Donald Trump and believes he will indeed turn America’s fortunes around, but says he is not fearful about his future.
Described only as Lourenço, aged 30, the young man arrived in the US with his family some years ago, and is working in spite of not having the necessary official papers.
He told JN: “Trump won’t hurt anyone. I’m absolutely sure he won’t. He may harm certain people, but it will be minimal. His focus is on deporting criminals, people who, for example, aren’t paying their debts. He’s going to send the criminals away. He said so himself”.
Lourenço stresses that he is not living in fear of being deported. “I know that he is going to improve the economy and everything else. I have my father and my sister here, who are both legalised. I am not worried. If they are fine, I won’t mind if I have to leave”, he added – but “now more than ever”, he said he is focused on marrying an American citizen to be able to stay in the country legally.
But back to Trump and Lourenço’s clear admiration for a man who may end up sending him packing: “He has an extreme capacity for negotiations, in other words, he was elected and automatically the wars want to stop. The whole world wants to go back to the peace agreement. And not only that, he is going to improve the economy, the money.
“Also the way he talks about ‘gays’, transgender people, all of that, that God only created man and woman…Trump has always done good for America. He has a blunt attitude when he speaks, he’s spontaneous, but that attitude doesn’t matter, what matters are his actions, and he has more actions than most presidents who have been here. He was the president who improved the economy,” Lourenço reiterates.
Source material: LUSA/ Jornal de Notícias
