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Migrant communities in the US on edge as Trump vows mass deportation of undocumented migrants

Donald Trump has promised to initiate the largest mass deportation in American history, though details of the plan remain scant.

Migrant communities in the US on edge as Trump vows mass deportation of undocumented migrants

Migrants stand in front of a fence while members of the Texas National Guard keep watch, after a group of migrants forced their way into the U.S. by breaking through razor wire and a fence, as SB 4 law that would empower law enforcement authorities in the state to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border was temporarily blocked, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 21, 2024. REUTERS/David Peinado

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TEXAS: For nearly two decades, Valeria Serna has lived just a six-hour drive away from her extended family in northern Mexico.

But not once has she gone home to visit them.

When she was eight years old, her mother took her illegally across the border to the United States. Serna said she lived in fear every day of being discovered in the country undocumented.

At age 18, she finally received some semblance of stability.

She was granted protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme – a federal scheme that allows certain undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children to live and work in the country without the fear of deportation.

“It kind of made me feel like I could finally call this place home – like they also accepted me. It gave me a sense of confidence,” she told CNA.

Now, however, new fears have emerged.

Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as the next US president next week, has vowed to make immediate and sweeping changes on day one, including initiating the largest mass deportation in American history.

COULD TRUMP USE THE MILITARY?

While details of Trump’s plan remain scant, he has threatened to mobilise the US military to help remove up to 11 million people who are in the country illegally.

It remains rare for US troops to be deployed domestically, but it is not unheard of. 

“There's a basis in federal law that allows the federal government to place national guard troops, which are nominally under the control of the governor of a particular state – but they can be federalised and deployed on the streets for law enforcement purposes,” said law professor Niels Franzen from the University of Southern California.

The military was used to keep order during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as right after the 9/11 attacks on New York City in 2001.

Military troops have also been repeatedly used to fight drug smuggling and human trafficking along the US-Mexico border.

However, experts said the military's role in civil law enforcement is meant to be limited.

“Typically speaking, it's insurrection, terrorism - things of national, immediate and limited duration situations in which the military can be used in domestic situations,” said Eric Corcoran, associate teaching professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs.

“They cannot, though, make determinations about whether or not someone is here legally or not legally,” he added.

That is carried out by border patrol agents – but the US faces a shortage of them.

Migrants being patted down by Border Patrol agents as they enter El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on May 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

Trump’s deportation plans could also be delayed by a massive backlog of nearly 4 million immigration cases.

Still, experts warned he could bypass immigration courts altogether.

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a US immigration policy analyst at think tank Migration Policy Institute, noted that Trump has spoken about expedited removal – a process by which low-level immigration officers can remove certain non-citizens without a hearing.

“Under expedited removal, immigration agents issue deportation orders rather than immigration judges. Agents can issue those orders in just a matter of hours,” she explained.

USING AN OLD LAW

Trump has also toyed with the idea of invoking a centuries-old law – the Alien Enemies Act – that allows presidents to detain and deport people from enemy nations.

It was last used to set up Japanese internment camps during World War II.

Texas has already offered up hundreds of hectares of land along the US-Mexico border for such detention facilities.

“The Alien Enemies Act does not require a declared war. The language of the law itself offers an alternative or simply a situation in which there is an invasion,” noted Cesar Garcia Hernandez, Gregory Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

“This is why it's so important that over the last 18 months, Republicans have been describing migration to the United States as an invasion.”

Experts said another option for Trump is to go after people who are already in the system. These include the hundreds of thousands of migrants granted temporary protective status because their home countries are too dangerous to return to.

While Trump has said he will not target DACA recipients, many – including Serna – are sceptical, as he had tried to end the programme during his first term in office.

“I’m so scared,” said Serna in tears.

“If you just start removing these people and you start breaking down the community, families – is that what you want?” she added.

“Is that what people want – to live in a place where families are constantly being ripped apart?”

Source: CNA/lt(ca)
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