There seems to be no question that President-elect Trump will follow through on his campaign commitment to conduct the largest-ever series of raids aiming to deport undocumented immigrants, whom he prefers to call “illegals.”
If and when this goes forward, much of the effect will hinge on whom the raids target. Trump speaks in general terms about going after all the undocumented, but he has said he will first seek out criminal aliens and those with amnesty cases already rejected by judges, but who remain in this country anyway. More than 1 million persons fall in those categories.
If his effort first targets the criminal element among the undocumented (federal statistics indicate their crime rates are lower than among U.S. citizens and green card holders), the effects on California’s economy and its psyche will be far less than if he goes after everyone here without government authorization.
Trump’s designated “border czar” Tom Homan, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, has said he prefers targeting criminals first, especially those already in U.S. jails for crimes other than unauthorized border crossings.
If Homan is frustrated there, he might send a combination of Border Patrol, Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI agents to California’s many farms, to roofing projects, hotels and restaurants, all places where immigration raids were conducted on Trump’s previous watch.
This might provide easier pickings for Trump’s “biggest deportation ever,” since California officials say they won’t cooperate in ridding their jails of the undocumented.
Most recently, California’s senior U.S Sen. Alex Padilla (an MIT graduate who is himself the son of Latino immigrants) told CBS’ Face the Nation that California will not “utilize state and local resources to do the federal government’s job for them.”
“That’s just the California way,” Padilla said. “We embrace our diversity, our diversity that’s made our communities thrive and our economy thrive, and so we will assist families against the threats of the Trump administration.”
That’s what the current special legislative session concentrating on funding legal efforts to resist some expected Trump moves is mostly about. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers know well that this state hosts about one-third of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants now in this country.
Businesses and farms that employ many of them have been largely silent about Trump’s threats, not wanting to provoke him any more than his November loss of California by more than 3.1 million votes already has.
Some California farmers also are keeping quiet about immigration issues in part because they would presumably get far more irrigation water under Trump’s proposed policies than they have under President Biden. Many have complained loudly (and on signs beside highways) that too much potential California farm water is “dumped into the ocean.”
Nevertheless, a recent UC Merced study concluded that at least half California’s estimated 162,000 farm workers are undocumented, making the Central Valley – America’s richest agricultural area – extra vulnerable to effects of major immigration raids.
Of course, raids that cause shortages of products from pears to pistachios, from almonds to apricots, could also lead to food shortages and even worse grocery inflation than America saw last year in a time of supply chain problems.
Hotel prices would also rise if their corps of room cleaners were depleted by immigration raids, and the already problematic price of housing could spike further if they decimate the high percentage of construction workers who are undocumented.
But there would be no such effects if Homan sent federal agents or even federal troops into jails and prisons to roust undocumented criminals from their cells, and that appears the likeliest first move. Yes, their families might be affected or even self-deport under that circumstance, but there would be few economic effects. And Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he would not resist such an effort.
Meanwhile, public schools and even county governments are bracing for widespread raids, with specific targets currently unknown. Los Angeles County supervisors, for one prominent example, passed a motion early this month to expand funding of legal services for immigrants by $5.5 million.
All of which leaves California and other centers of illegal immigration in a waiting mode, not knowing for sure where the new Trump administration will strike first against the undocumented.
Email Thomas Elias at [email protected].
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Publish date : 2024-12-12 08:18:00
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