The Centerfold of Trumps Reelection Campaign is About Ginning Up Hate & the Politics of Xenophobia! with Muzaffar Chishti, Director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law, whose work focuses on U.S. immigration policy at the federal, state, and local levels; the intersection of labor and immigration law; immigration enforcement; civil liberties; and immigrant integration, former Director of the Immigration Project of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE). and Tom Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), which, next year, will celebrate more than 50 years promoting the civil rights of all Latinos living in the United States. Prior to that he served as counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, where he helped to lead the legislative effort to change the governance of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the effect of was to take the City a step closer to securing a quality education for all students in Los Angeles.
According to Trump's latest tweet, his assault on immigrant families is postponed for two weeks. Nevertheless we must be mindful that Trump asserted that ICE agents would conduct a mass roundup of 2,000 migrant families, being called the family op that have received deportation orders, an operation that was purported to begin with predawn raids in 10 major U.S. cities , including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations. Trumps own Acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan has warned that an indiscriminate operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents in cases where the children are at day care, summer camp or friends houses. He also has maintained that ICE should not devote major resources to carrying out a mass interior sweep while telling lawmakers it needs emergency funding to address the crisis at the U.S. border.
But, Trump has been in direct communication with acting ICE director Mark Morgan and other ICE officials, circumventing McAleenan. ICE officials said the agency was planning to use hotel rooms as temporary staging areas to detain parents and children until all the members of a family are together and ready for deportation. Officials also acknowledge that they might arrest individuals they cannot immediately deport " known as collateral arrests " and likely will release those people with ankle monitoring devices.
Meanwhile, as news of the looming raids reached the Democratic-run cities on the ICE list, local and state officials blasted the Trump administration and said they would not provide police support. LAPD Chief Michel Moore said that ICE has 140 targets in the area. The Department however is not participating or assisting in any of these enforcement actions, the LAPD said. New York Attorney General Letitia James assailed Trumps plan for mass deportation raids, saying that the presidents use of migrant families and asylum seekers as political punching bags is a despicable act of racism and xenophobia that is antithetical to our basic human values. This is an immoral and unconscionable act by a president and an administration hell bent on dividing our country, and, as New Yorks top law enforcement officer, I can assure New Yorkers we will do everything in our power to fight back against these inhumane policies, James said in a statement.
Produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program - knash@igc.org
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