Donald Trump’s early moves indicate that he will take a hardline approach to the deportation of undocumented migrants, no matter the cost.
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Is it politically wise to begin a presidential term by implementing a heavy-handed policy that, if fully executed, would not only tank the economy but may also alienate the very voters who helped you win an election? Donald Trump seems determined to find out.
Unbridled xenophobia was one of the key themes of his campaign. In one rally after another, he used increasingly fascist language to stigmatize undocumented immigrants and threaten them with imminent deportation if elected.
Echoing language used by some of the worst dictators in human history, he has called them “animals” that “poison” the United States, and he suggested that he might use the military and arcane laws to round them up.
However, actually carrying out the “largest deportation operation in American history” would likely backfire in more ways than one.
And “backfire” is sugar-coating it.
Economically, it might spell disaster.
If Trump really tries to forcibly remove more than 10 million migrants (and he claims it may be 20 million), it would lead to higher prices, lower wages, slower job growth, and a strain on the social safety net.
That’s because millions of these immigrants do jobs Americans don’t want (usually for less money than they would be willing to do them for), and they pay billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes without benefiting from these programs.
In addition to the potentially devastating impact on the economy, the optics of mass arresting migrants may upset some of the voters who did not believe that Trump was going to rule as an authoritarian. This is especially true when those detained/deported were otherwise law-abiding members of their communities and/or part of mixed-status families, for example those in which children born in the US are American citizens but their parents are not.
For example, Hispanics and young people may start feeling differently about Trump once people they know are affected by the deportations.
Therefore, it seemed possible that the incoming president merely wanted to tap into the xenophobia of his followers… only to then scale down his plans, e.g., by saying that he only wanted to deport cartel members or some other nonsense his voters might buy.
However, it seems as though he is really trying to go for it.
This weekend, he announced that Tom Homan, his former acting immigrations and customs enforcement director, would serve as “border czar.”
Homan hit the ground running and said on Monday that Democratic governors in blue states should “get the hell out of the way” so that the Feds can carry out mass deportations there.
Also on Monday, it became known that Trump chose white nationalist ghoul Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy.
At the president-elect’s hate rally in Madison Square Garden last month, Miller stated that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
We’ll see how far Trump is willing to go to make that happen.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
