By Vanessa Cárdenas
Yesterday, Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, reacted to the details and larger implications of the Trump and Miller immigration plan. Read her comments in full HERE and find excerpts of Vanessa’s reaction to Trump’s vision below:
“Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s immigration plan is not just a draconian set of policies, but also a blueprint for Trump and the GOP’s ongoing assault on America’s history as a beacon of hope and opportunity and the notion of our country as an inclusive, multiracial, majoritarian democracy.
…All of us who believe immigrants and refugees are foundational to the American experiment should be clear of the stakes of Trump’s latest manifesto and how immigration is weaponized as part of Republicans’ assault on our inclusive democracy.”
Find excerpts from The New Republic article: “Trump’s Sickening Plans for an All-Out War on Immigrants” below:
“Donald Trump is reportedly planning an immigration crackdown that would make his first stint in the White House look tame.
…Trump, if elected in 2024, is planning to increase ideological screenings of immigrants to prevent ‘Marxists’ from entering, to designate drug cartels as ‘unlawful enemy combatants,’ and to expand the ‘Muslim ban’ to more countries.
…Designating drug cartels as ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ would provide a legal justification for the United States military to target them in Mexico—or so Trump imagines. It would also significantly raise tensions between the U.S. and Mexico, to say the least.
Trump also plans to complete his precious border wall, grow the dangerous floating barriers in the Rio Grande, deploy the Coast Guard and Navy to create a sea blockade to stop drug smugglers, and end ‘birthright citizenship’ for children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants. These ideas and more stand a better chance of surviving court challenges given that the Supreme Court has become even more conservative since Trump’s first term.
Trump hopes to use the Alien Enemies Act—a long-forgotten section of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798—to quickly deport gang members, smugglers, and criminals by claiming a border ‘invasion’ and designating people from certain countries as ‘alien enemies.’ He also wants to make it easier to deport people and would use the FBI, DEA, and perhaps even the National Guard to find undocumented immigrants.”