Rayhan Ahmed Topader :
Donald Trump’s extraordinary election as president of the United States defied all odds and surprised even some of his most ardent supporters. Those concerned with immigration are struggling to assess the consequences that will follow based on his platform and Republican control of both the Senate and the House. Donald Trump winning the U.S. Presidential election will now try to implement his immigration policy. It includes deporting 11 million unlawfully present immigrants, building a wall on the Mexican border to be paid by Mexico and blocking certain Muslims from terrorism-related areas from immigrating to the United States. Trump promised to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. Republican president-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the crowd during his acceptance speech at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016 in New York City. Donald Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States. For starters, Trump has promised to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Some immigration leaders have voiced fears of raids on illegal immigrants, possible abuse of process and increased detentions. Considering that illegal immigrants in America are entitled to due process, significant resources to hire more judges and prosecutors will be needed.
Even then, courts will be clogged with immigration cases for years to implement such a policy. In short that’s a tall mountain to climb, but Trump has steadfastly advanced the idea. Here’s how we can be confident that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. At the core of Donald Trump’s proposals on immigration is that he hopes to crack down on immigrants here illegally. But Trump repeatedly claims not to know how many people that is. The central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants or however many there may be and honestly we’ve been hearing that number for years,” he said during his speech on Wednesday.” It’s always 11 million. Our government has no idea. It could be 3 million. It could be 30 million. They have no idea what the number is. It’s an important figure in part because Trump’s ideas for dealing with those immigrants could balloon in cost if the number is three times the 11 million “we’ve been hearing for years. But Trump misunderstands the figure in a number of key ways. It’s not produced by the government, it’s not static at 11 million and there’s basically no way it could be off by 300 percent. The most common source for the 11 million figure is number-crunching from Pew Research Center. Year-by-year, Pew crafts an estimate of the country’s undocumented immigrant population, using a variety of statistical tools to ensure that the figure is as accurate as possible.
IN SUMMARY: Fear and uncertainty are surging among undocumented immigrants. Will their workplaces be raided? Will there be mass expulsions? Greater obstacles to gaining legal status? What will happen? When would-be immigrants Bernardino and Samuel got word in Mexico of the election of Donald Trump, they immediately gave up their plans to cross illegally into the United States. The rhetoric that originally fuelled the billionaire populist’s rise to power was built around his ambitious promises to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US and to build a “big, beautiful, powerful wall” along the border with Mexico. Now, with the New York Republican’s stunning victory Tuesday, fear and uncertainty are surging among undocumented immigrants. Will their workplaces be raided? Will there be mass expulsions? Greater obstacles to gaining legal status? What will happen? Samantha Yanez had not caught a wink of sleep. She arrived in the US at the age of six and now, at 21, she knows no other reality. But she has no papers. Because she arrived as a child, she was granted temporary legal status by executive order of President Barack Obama. But Trump has sharply criticized that program and could end it when he takes office in January.” It’s as if I didn’t have a country; I’m a foreigner in the only country I know,” Samantha said, her voice quaking. Once he assumes office, President Trump is likely to cancel President Obama’s executive orders establishing the DACA and DAPA programs, which would have granted undocumented immigrants temporary reprieves from removal and given long-term resident illegal immigrants work permits.
Clearly Trump will want to stem the tide of Syrian refugees coming to the United States. He spoke in particular about blocking Muslim immigration from the areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies. That’s likely to come in the early days of Trump’s presidency. Trump’s announced plan for reforming immigration, that is to say, building a wall along the southern border and having Mexico pay for it, tripling the number of immigration and customs agents to clamp down on border security, cancelling birthright citizenship and imposing e-verify on employers hiring foreign workers, can all be expected to be part of his changes in immigration policy. Further, we can expect that he will make it harder for foreign students to study in the U.S. by ending subsidies and lowered in-state tuition fees for those who are currently eligible for them.
Every day at sunrise he arrives at a community centre in Pasadena (15 miles, or 25 kilometers, from Los Angeles), where painting, construction, moving, gardening and cleaning jobs are passed out, paying “enough to get by.There was talk at the centre on Wednesday of the “Trump tragedy.” But Jose is among those who think that much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric during the fierce election campaign was simply that talk and that in the end, things will be “just like with the other presidents: lots of promises, not much action. Who harvests the crops in the field? Who washes the dishes in the restaurants? Have you seen any American some blond American doing it? What would this place be without us?” asks a beefy 47-year-old man.
The extent of such changes in policy will depend, however, on what personnel he appoints to implement it. Nonetheless, my earlier article assessing Trump’s immigration plan pointed out why his ideas about deportations and building a wall are simply not practical. In the area of employment, some immigration attorneys expect difficulty in expanding the H-1B visa program not only because of Trump, but also because Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican Senator from Iowa, will be leading opponents of easing H1B work visa requirements by Congress. Instead of expanding who may come in under the H-1B program, which is particularly needed by many high tech companies in Silicon Valley, it is more likely that Congress will increase the prevailing wage required and introduce an American-worker-first element. However, immigration initiatives are likely to be somewhat delayed by higher priority matters, such as eliminating Obamacare, tax reforms and the wars overseas. In the end, this may be the illegal immigrant community’s best hope in the year ahead. For one thing the NAFTA free trade deal could be in jeopardy, and with it thousands of professionals currently working in the United States from Canada and Mexico. Similarly, U.S. citizens working in Canada and Mexico also have to wonder about their work visas in the future. The renewal of the EB5 investor immigration program scheduled to sunset in December is another source of concern since it has brought billions of dollars of foreign investment into the United States. It is unclear whether Trump will support its renewal, although a future Republican Congress can generally be expected to be favorably disposed to it.
