President-elect Donald J. Trump is already preparing for his incoming administration to fulfill his campaign promises. While many of his supporters will welcome such efforts, advocates say immigrants in their communities are frightened.
Mr. Trump vowed to increase border security and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. This week, he appointed Tom Homan, who led U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the previous Trump administration, to oversee the border and carry out the mass deportations. Mr. Trump also tapped Stephen Miller, a longtime aide, to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy. Mr. Miller is known as an immigration hardliner whose policies led to family separations during the previous administration.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he would nominate South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security. If confirmed, Ms. Noem would head an agency that is at the center of Trump’s sweeping immigration plans and his campaign vow to carry out mass deportations of immigrants in the United States illegally. In 2021, she joined other Republican governors who sent troops to Texas to assist Texas’ Operation Lone Star, which sought to discourage migrants.
“These are clear signs that the president-elect intends to carry out some of the worst campaign promises, including mass deportation,” Dylan Corbett, the executive director of Hope Border Institute, told America. “And we have a lot of people in the country right now who are afraid today.”
Mr. Trump understands the system better after serving out his first administration, and Mr. Corbett expects the coming four years to be severe for those who “live in the country without documents, and to the people who are fleeing to our country for protection.”
But it isn’t just immigrants who are concerned. Those who work with migrants are “feeling a lot of angst, and also fear,” Mr. Corbett said, noting how Republican politicians have been threatening church and humanitarian efforts to help immigrants. Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempted to shut down Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit serving migrants and asylum-seekers at the Southern border.
“People who minister to migrants are also feeling a lot of grief and anxiety,” Mr. Corbett said. “The church needs to offer a clear word of solidarity, both with migrants as well as with those who minister to migrants. It’s going to be a difficult four years ahead.”
Linda Dakin-Grimm, an immigration attorney in Southern California, described the reaction to Mr. Trump’s election as “12 hours of just shock and despair.”
“Everybody started wondering, ‘How bad is it going to be?’ And since we lived through this before, when there were more constraints, I think we know,” she told America.
Ms. Dakin-Grimm is urging her clients to complete applications for immigration status, including asylum claims, before Mr. Trump takes office. She is also urging those with work permits to renew them. Ms. Dakin-Grimm expects the administration to reduce work permits and to wind down Temporary Protected Status, which the Department of Homeland Security confers to individuals whose home countries are suffering from ongoing conflict, environmental disasters or other unsafe conditions. The status protects them from deportation.
“Those of us who are working in the field foresee a real closing of the doors all the way around,” Ms. Dakin-Grimm said. “They want to end family-based migration, and they want to only have employment-based migration for who they consider worthy people. That would be a really massive change to the system.”
Josephine López Paul is a lead organizer with Communities Organized for Public Service, or COPS/Metro Alliance, in San Antonio. Her organization is expecting 1,000 community members at an event on Dec. 8.
“There’s division and trauma everywhere, so we’re hoping this gathering will be a light—what we need to be as a community and to be brothers and sisters to each other in this city,” she told America. “The election doesn’t change what we do. We keep on going.”
Still, Ms. López Paul reported a “palpable fear” in the community.
“The electorate voted against immigrants,” she said. “But most of these folks don’t live the everyday reality that we do. We feel the pain of immigrants in our city and on the border and in our region.”
Making local connections, she said, breaks down barriers and dispels false caricatures of immigrants. “They are not a danger,” Ms. López Paul said. “These are our neighbors.”
Mr. Corbett described the next four years as a time for Catholics to answer Pope Francis’ call to be a church that accompanies and stands with the marginalized.
“Pope Francis has been asking for a church that’s committed to people who are in desperate circumstances, people who find themselves in situations of isolation and persecution and exclusion,” he said. “It will be a moment of trial for the church, but I think it will also be a moment of deep renewal.”
In recent interviews, Mr. Homan has said that he would initially pursue deporting undocumented immigrants posing a risk to public safety, according to The Associated Press. He also denied that the U.S. military would be assisting in finding and deporting immigrants.
“You concentrate on the public safety threats and the national security threats first, because they’re the worst of the worst,” Mr. Homan said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” He also said ICE would move to implement Mr. Trump’s plans in a “humane manner.”
“It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of ICE,” he said. “The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it.”
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report. This story has been updated.
