Immigrant rights groups ready to challenge newly elected President Trump’s policies: NPR

Immigrant rights groups from across the country are determined about one thing: They will fight back against any policies from newly-elected President Donald Trump that target migrants.

Trump won the electoral college and the popular vote – the first time for a Republican since 2004. He made immigration a key part of his campaign, and he promised to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country without permission.

Trump is also expected to target the US refugee resettlement program and has said he will end the birthright rights of children born in the US to parents living in the country illegally.

“We have prepared — we have the legal tools, we have the advocacy tools and, most importantly, we have people,” said Maribel Hernández Rivera, director of policy and government affairs for border and immigration at the ACLU.

She called Trump’s proposals “cruel” and added, “we are ready” to challenge Trump’s policies.

Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, told NPR that the country has “already survived one Trump administration, and we believe we are preparing to do it again.”

Awawdeh is looking at a three-pronged approach: protests, local legislation and lawsuits. Rights groups are also ramping up “know your rights” training. “This time, I feel we are better prepared and know what to expect and are ready to fight his racist deportation agenda with our members and allies,” he said.

Hernández Rivera and other advocates said that when Trump was first elected in 2016, there was a lot of uncertainty about his immigration plans, beyond promises to build that “big, beautiful wall” along the U.S. southern border. But because Trump has been so open about the mass deportations this time, they have been able to organize.

Rights groups have created a federal advocacy plan, while the ACLU state chapters have been working on a strategy to create a firewall against the Trump administration. She also said the organization is also ready to mobilize its four million members to “protect immigrants.”

Disappointment among the Democrats

One of the organizations that knocked on behalf of Democrats in swing states, including Pennsylvania, is CASA, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for immigrants.

Gustavo Torres, the organization’s executive director, told NPR workers who belong to CASA today are expressing their disappointment with the Democratic Party’s strategy and immigration policies and that the Harris campaign has failed to deliver a clear immigration policy or to formulate or promote border policy, such as routes. to citizenship. When the issue came up during the race, Harris criticized Trump for scuttling a bipartisan border bill.

“They’ve been promised immigration reform for the last 25 to 30 years, but it never happened,” Torres said. He added that Democrats failed to deliver on their reform promise when they controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate under former President Barack Obama’s first term.

Torres said many of his members say they feel tokenized by Democrats.

Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigration Coalition also expressed dissatisfaction with the way the White House passed restrictive immigration measures ahead of the election.

President Biden, for example, has implemented this a ban on most asylum applications at the U.S. southern border – a policy almost indistinguishable from the one Trump pursued during his first term.

Trump also created the Migrant Protection Protocols, which require migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait for court appointments in Mexico. And he carried it out Title 42 who has been expelling migrants at the border for public health reasons during COVID-19. Biden maintained that program for two years.

“The Republican Party really spews the rhetoric and then the Democratic Party actually puts that rhetoric into policy,” Awawdeh said. “It’s a shame, but it wasn’t a complete shock.”