Wednesday, November 13, 2024
United States
What to Expect from Trump on
Deportations
and
the Southern Border
Demonstration
in New York City opposing Biden's executive order to close the southern
border and illegally block refugees seeking asylum, June 6, 2024.
• What
to Expect from Trump on Deportations
and
the Southern Border
• Targeting the "Enemy Within"
United States
What to Expect from Trump on
Deportations
and
the Southern Border
As Donald Trump made clear throughout the presidential election campaign and since he became president-elect, closing the southern U.S. border and deporting massive numbers of people is a number one priority.
On November 6, Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News that Trump has "a mandate to govern as he campaigned, to deliver on the promises that he made, which include, on Day 1, launching the largest mass deportation operation." He is talking about deporting an estimated 13 million people without government documentation, who are living and working in the U.S., many for decades. Such mass deportations would be done without due process, likely using raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are estimated to cost more than $315 billion.
On November 10, Trump announced that Tom Homan, the former acting director of ICE who backed his "zero tolerance" policy in his first administration, will be joining the Trump Administration as his "border czar." Trump said on Truth Social that Homan will be "in charge of our Nation's Borders, including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security."
"Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,' Trump said. Homan is already promising workplace raids and said family separation could be avoided by deporting the family together (i.e. deporting children born in the U.S. in the name of not separating families).
Trump is
persisting with this plan not only because he is himself a racist,
tyrant and quite prone to commit crimes against humanity, all of which
are true. He is also doing so because he thinks that by doing so he can
unite the military and avert civil war. By declaring immigrants and
refugees "enemies within" the United States and acting to remove them,
he hopes to bring all the racists on board.
Trump represents the U.S. person-of-state whose main job is to preserve
the Union. As part of this effort to unite the military, he is also
targeting what he calls "every migrant criminal network" to justify
criminalizing people deemed to be gang members, or human and drug
traffickers and labeling them "terrorists."
Already, military officials are talking with officials in Mexico concerning the need for "transnational cooperation," and intervention by the U.S. military and policing forces to "help fight organized crime."
The presidential election and elections to Congress and the Senate did nothing to diminish the problem which remains of the danger of open violent civil war among the ruling factions and against the peoples rising to demand a different direction for the country. Doing everything possible to strengthen the power of the president to act with impunity is the Trump agenda, as it would have been for Kamala Harris also and it is in fact already being implemented by the Biden Administration in myriad ways. Biden is already engaged in closing the border and interning people in Guantánamo, away from the reach of U.S. obligations in the treatment of asylum seekers.
As president, Trump is also tasked with eliminating barriers in the Constitution to permit greater use of the police powers and impunity of the presidency against rival factions and especially against the peoples, including use of the military inside the country, and against powers held by state-level authorities.
For example, in terms of relations with the states, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, when asked if state police would help Trump's deportation efforts, said, "No. Absolutely not." "I do think it is important that we all recognize that there is going to be a lot of pressure on states and state officials," she added. "Every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states and to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle," she said.
Massachusetts, like New York, Illinois, and California, have seen a large influx of immigrants and refugees in the last year. To pit the peoples against each other while justifying removals, the claim is made that the refugees are the source of insufficient funds for housing, education, health care etc., especially in cities like Chicago and New York City. Massive war funding along with funding for the many policing agencies, and paying the government debts, are not mentioned when scarcity of funds is raised.
Immigration enforcement is evidently seen as one means to impose the will of the president through coercion and force. It can serve to break an existing barrier concerning powers of the states and their state policing agencies and National Guard, both controlled by the Governor of the given state. It can also be used to justify greater and harsher repression of the people in the name of "national security," using federal policing agencies and the military, if need be, as Trump puts it.
In this regard, already a bill has been put forward in the House of Representatives, possibly for a fast-track vote without debate, called the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as H.R. 9495. It would grant the Secretary of the Treasury Department unilateral authority, without evidence or explanation, to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit organization deemed to be a "terrorist supporting organization." This would effectively prevent them from getting donations and grants and force many to shut down. It would serve to increase use of "terrorism" charges against students and many others, and to increase the police powers of the presidency.
It can be seen that besides waging turf wars, the problems being addressed by Trump are not mainly those of closing the border per se. His attempts to preserve the Union by increasing federal policing powers and undermining resistance and unity among the peoples is what the peoples of the U.S. are preparing for.
Targeting the "Enemy Within"
In his victory speech following the November 5 presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump spoke of unity and that "We're going to help our country heal." He said, "We're going to fix our borders, we're going to fix everything about our country." "We're gonna have to seal up those borders, and we're gonna have to let people come into our country. We want people to come back in. But we have to, we have to let them come back in, but they have to come in legally," he said.
The call to "let
people come into our country [...] legally" partly
reflects the demands of U.S. oligopolies for cheap labour, often
enslaved labour by immigrants where wages are not paid, especially for
farmworkers and construction workers. It is also the case that when
refugees enter the
country based on international law of which the U.S. is a signatory,
they are always "legal" because they can enter anywhere along the
border to seek asylum, not only via official border stations. Trump and
Biden confound unofficial border crossings with illegality and
asylum-seekers who enter
via those crossings are treated as illegal.
During his campaign Trump referred to cities in the U.S., like Aurora, Colorado by using military terms. He said they are being "occupied" and are "under invasion." He also said, "Following the Eisenhower Model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history."
On November 7 Trump said, "We have no choice," when it comes to deportations. Speaking to the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to accomplish the mass deportations, perhaps $1 trillion if done over several years, Trump said, "There is no price tag."
Control of the purse-strings is one of the few powers Congress has left. It has always been central to the issue of representation, expressed in the slogan at the time of the U.S. battle for independence from Britain, No Taxation Without Representation. Having Congress control the purse strings is supposed to be a major impediment to the president acting with impunity. But even on this issue, the rivalries within the ruling factions reflected in the Congress are so intense that budgets do not get passed and government shutdowns loom every few months. Trump is hoping he can control the Congress but the factions among the cartel parties remain, so how votes will go on specific issues remain unpredictable.
The inference to this program of deportations and closing the southern border having "no price tag" is that Trump can always utilize funds already designated to the Pentagon, which yearly gets about $800 billion, even if they were meant for other purposes. This is another means used to break barriers when it comes to control of funds. Such funds have been given by Biden repeatedly to Ukraine as well as Israel. As well, with multi-billionaires like Elon Musk and others, Trump could use public-private partnerships, as well as private mercenaries for enforcement, as was done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Sudan and other countries.
In
addition, Trump said at several campaign rallies, "I will invoke the
Alien Enemies Act
of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant
criminal network operating on American soil." He said he will use the
act to initiate a federal effort called Operation Aurora,
directed
against what he terms
"occupations" of cities like Aurora, Colorado. He has also said he will
use it against sanctuary states and cities -– like
California,
Colorado, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and many more in all parts
of the country.[1]
Such actions will target state and city officials and their authority
and are meant to strengthen federal dictate and command over policing
forces. It is also the case that it could be used to brand such
officials as those who are protecting "alien enemies," and "criminals."
Taken together with existing laws concerning terrorism and "material
support for terrorism,"
the door is opened wide for presidential targeting of "enemies within"
as Trump repeatedly spoke about.
Despite his many threats and plans, organizations across the country are already gearing up to defend the rights of immigrants and refugees, continuing to demand that all detention camps be closed, including Guantanamo. No doubt U.S. rulers have forgotten the militant and revolutionary traditions Mexicans bring to the struggle of the U.S. working class of which they are an integral part and the united stand across the country for the rights of all. As many actions have said, No Crimes Against Humanity in Our Communities!
May Day migrant rights
action in 2022 in Milwaukee
Note
1. For a full listing, see: "Map: Sanctuary Cities, Counties and States," Center for Immigration Studies, November 2024.
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
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