Border patrol agents escort migrants they apprehended in Juarez, Mexico (Photo Courtesy of ABC News)
During his first days as president, Donald Trump is already issuing blatantly unconstitutional executive orders like the termination of birthright citizenship. He is saying that if a child from immigrants is born on U.S. soil, then they will not become an American citizen.
If passed, the executive order will detrimentally affect a large number of immigrant families. This is an unfortunate surprise for many Latinos who voted for Trump.
During the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, and received 42% of the Latino vote and that is more votes received from Latino voters than any other former Republican candidate.
This was to the shock of many voters because of Trump’s harsh immigration policy statements. His statements would cause entire families to be sent back if one member of the family was “illegal”. Trump often used rhetoric that endangered immigrants because so many people believe what Trump says. For example Trump accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets, and many Trump supporters believed him and started attacking Haitians.
According to a poll conducted by the University of Texas at Austin, two thirds of voters including Democrats in Texas are supporting the Republican party because they want the border strengthened. They feel that during the Biden presidency because they feel he hasn’t done enough to stop the migrants. Latinos supported a crackdown and reinforcement of the border because many of them have been here for a while and they want to have a sense of belonging as Americans. They feel that if more immigrants come they will be misconstrued with the rest and then be looked down upon.
Latinos are convinced that President-elect Trump will do a much better job. Even though Trump’s policies are harsh, they want the job done, and they feel Biden is too soft on immigrants.
This shows that many Latino voters believed Trump’s false rhetoric about the number of undocumented migrants and how they threaten society.
Overall, fifty-three percent of registered Latino voters favor Trump’s mass deportation policy because of misinformation spread by the Republican Party.
Many members of this party including Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Tom Cotton have all made false accusations about how many people have been let into this country, and the numbers they have claimed ranged from 8 to 10 million according to Fact Check.org. People in high positions in the government try to only show the worst side of immigrants to scare American people into thinking that immigrants are harmful, and so they broadcast the instances where a migrant may have broken the law. This puts fear into people, and this is why people are opposed to them.
Nikki Haley, a Republican politician, diplomat, and daughter of Indian immigrants conducts herself hypocritically when it comes to immigration. Being the daughter of immigrants, she understands the hardships immigrants have to go through however, she still pushes for overtly harsh policies that involve completely closing the border. She has repeatedly stated in many interviews that 8 million immigrants have been let into this country and that only 142,000 have been sent back. In an interview with the Iowa PBS, she stated “The idea that we’ve had 8 million and they only sent back 142,000 should scare everybody.” This may have been a purposeful, or accidental misunderstanding of The Department of Homeland Security’s data. Data shows that immigration officials have encountered immigrants 8.1 million times at the US, Mexico border. This means that of the 8.1m encounters with migrants, 2.3m have been let into the US so far, and the DHS estimates that roughly 391,000 migrants have evaded authorities.
Ron DeSantis had a similar statement as Nikki Haley during CNN’s Republican Debate in Iowa. In an effort to attack Biden’s Presidency, a false statement he made was “Biden let in 8 million people just in four years. They all have to go back,”. The half true lies that the Republican Party spread caused Latino voters to sway towards Trump. Not to be belittling, but many fresh immigrants who have just recently became citizens, and are able to vote may not be able to understand every word in English, but they do understand most. The Trump campaign and Trump himself commonly uses words like “very very bad” instead of something along the lines of “Great Stumbling Block”. This may be appealing to new latino voters who are still learning English.
On the contrary, Sen. Tom Cotton, a well educated man, in a response to a question on Fox News falsely equated the approximately 2 million immigrant apprehensions during the Biden presidency to “adding the entire population of Nebraska to this country.”according to the Tucson Sentinel.com (newspaper). This statement is false for many reasons including the fact that most of the immigrants apprehended were immediately turned around. Officials say that many people associate apprehensions with successful unauthorized entries into the United States. In an email, the director of communications for the Migration Policy Institute explained to the Tucson Sentinel that Apprehensions represent measures taken by Border Protection officials, and Customs to intercept unauthorized individuals, and not capturing immigrants that have already crossed the border.
Latino voters supported Trump’s mass deportation policy because of misinformation spread by the Republican Party. Many members of this party including Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Tom Cotton have all made false accusations about how many people have been let into this country.
Many people may argue that immigrants are dangerous anyways for numerous reasons. For example, people may say they bring drug cartels and violence however, this is why the border needs to have more screening to filter out, and discourage troublesome people from trying to cause havoc in the U.S. Furthermore, people are leaving their countries to get away from drugs and violence, not to spread it. The United States of all countries being the “Land of the free” should not be trying to stop people from coming to a “free country”.
If the U.S. govt. doesn’t want any more people, then it should be trying to resolve the conflicts in the other countries so that people don’t have to feel the need to go somewhere safer.
The majority of migrants arrive at the US / Mexico border from Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and Colombia. These immigrants are leaving their home countries because of gang violence, or severe poverty according to Council on Foreign Relations.org. Most immigrants that are let in the border come for work, and send money back to their families who were not able to leave.
Immigration is a major issue because large numbers of people especially coming from countries with inadequate medical services can cause a rapid spread of disease, and infection. Many of these people will need to be vaccinated before coming into the U.S. to prevent them from getting sick from viruses and bacteria native to America, and to protect Americans from getting sick from them. This still doesn’t mean the border should be closed. This simply means there needs to be a better and more effective way to allow immigrants seeking asylum to enter the U.S.
The Watoto Speak! 