Mass Deportations Under a Second Trump Presidency

Episode Notes

Transcript

Ediberto Román:

We shouldn’t lose sight. Frankly, what President Trump did in his first term was a family separation doctrine that was so horrific, taking children from the arms of their parents crossing the border, innocent children and pitting them in cages literally. And I think we’re going to see that on steroids frankly.

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J. Craig Williams:

Welcome to Lawyer to Lawyer on the Legal Talk Network. I’m Craig Williams, coming to you from Southern California. I occasionally write a blog named May It please the court and have three books out titled How To Get Sued, The Sled and my newest book, How Would You Decide? 10 Famous Trials That Changed History. You can find all three on Amazon. In addition, our new podcast miniseries In Dispute: 10 Famous Trials That Changed History is currently featured here on the Legal Talk Network and on your favorite podcasting app. Check out our latest episode of Inpu Evolution versus Creationism, how the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial gained nationwide attention with former President Trump slated to take office on January 20th, 2025. He has not wasted any time and his quest to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump recently appointed former acting US ICE Director Tom Holman. As borders are in interviews.

Holman revealed that his mission was to expel criminals and national security threats and did not rule out deporting families together. Trump confirmed his plan to declare a national emergency once in office and use the military for mass deportations. Today on Lawyer to Lawyer, we will discuss mass deportations under a Trump presidency. We’ll take a look at the legal issues and the potential impact on immigrants as well as our nation, and to help us better understand today’s topic, we’re joined by Professor Ediberto Román. He is the Director of Immigration and Citizenship Initiatives at the Florida International University College of Law. Professor Román’s teaching experience includes constitutional law, immigration and citizenship studies, professional responsibility, race and the law remedies and street law. He’s been asked to testify before governmental bodies on immigration reform and has visited the White House on several occasions to address matters related to immigration policy and the judicial vacancy debate. Welcome to the show, Eddie Berthel.

Ediberto Román:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, tell us how you became interested in immigration law. Give us your backstory.

Ediberto Román:

Well, backstory grew up in New York City, east Harlem and Puerto Rico. First began interested in college how the influence of a teacher, an educator can impact your life, basically introductory course to college English. And I began to look at what I saw as desperate treatment between US citizens in Puerto Rico and the us And from those studies later in college and then in law school, I began to write and examine these issues eventually looking at the parallels with treatment of different statistically significant minorities in the US and in history. And it was a natural transition to examining Latino and Latina history in the States. And of course immigration is central to that.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, you’ve got quite a resume and quite a lot of experience. Where do you see the current immigration situation as we exist under Biden? Because I want to compare it later to where we’re going to be going.

Ediberto Román:

Yeah, I think under the Biden administration, it refers back to talks and papers I’ve given on the issue, particularly one book project I had several years ago called those Damn Immigrants Americans, hysteria Over Undocumented Immigration where I try to be a bipartisan critic so to speak. And point out that on the Democratic side there’s not much backbone with respect to the realities and issues with respect to immigration. And sadly, all too often republicans have been somewhat vicious in terms of immigration. But focusing on the Biden administration in particular, they have not taken the steps I think necessarily. There was a lifting of Title 42, which was basically a halting of immigration in many respects because of Covid with that was the perception of open borders. And I think until the issue became national headlines that we see executive order recently introduced to limit the inflow of immigration. So I believe that issue probably more than any had an effect on the 2024 presidential election because I think President-elect Trump took that issue and ran with it. So Biden has done things to curb immigration and the studies demonstrate that after the executive order, but I think it was too little, too late,

J. Craig Williams:

Too little, too late, and we’re going to have too much too soon,

Ediberto Román:

Way too much too soon. But as the adage go, history repeats itself on what appears to be, and I’m pretty critical of his overall policies and platform. President-elect Trump seemed to have had one issue in his campaign and some might call it xenophobia, myself included, with respect to that xenophobic reference of him being the so-called anti-immigrant savior. His proposal is what he affectionately calls the Eisenhower plan is something that was introduced in the 1950s

J. Craig Williams:

Operation wet back, right,

Ediberto Román:

Exactly where hundreds of thousands of particularly Latino and Latina immigrants, if they were viewed to be Mexican. And that’s basically anyone that appears to be brown in many respects were deported. And with that were the byproducts of it, the dire consequences. Not only the human rights abuses on the immigrants themselves where many were transported in such horrific ways that was widespread efforts that led to some deaths and even widespread belief of starvation during this process. It was haphazard. And with that, if we’re just going to look at it from a selfish standpoint, irrespective of the impact on others IE immigrants, there were thousands of US citizens as well as permanent legal residents, they were deported at the same time. And I think we’re going to face those abuses and we shouldn’t lose sight. Frankly, what President Trump did in his first term was family separation doctrine that was so horrific, taking children from the arms of their parents crossing the border, innocent children and them in cages literally. And I think we’re going to see that on steroids. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised in the haphazard efforts that will be made with basically mass deportation, we may very well have internment camps, horrific things like we saw during World War ii when we see the horrific consequences of the Supreme Court decision called Korematsu. That is a dark period in our country’s history, and I think it’s going to repeat itself.

J. Craig Williams:

We have Japanese internment camps still standing here in California.

Ediberto Román:

It’s terrible. It’s terrible. And in the more recent manifestation with respect to family separation, there are still hundreds of children separated from their parents. And I’ve written about this in a Harvard Law Review Journal addressing these issues and taking the data from the congressional record. And as I always tell my students, or anytime I’m involved in a debate and I don’t certainly foresee it in this context, I invite people not to believe me, to do the research to look it up. Now, you could obviously look up my name and find one of the host of things, be it in op-eds or law review articles or even books that I’ve written on it. But I ask people to go further than that. Look at the congressional record at what was found with respect to the children that were killed while separated from their parents. And the abuse, physical and even sexual abuse. It is something that is shocking. It is something that no politician has really paid for in terms of the harm that was done to these people. And even if we use markers and labels to demonize, they’re still human beings and the leader of the free world and arguably the leader in terms of human rights and democracy, to have that part of our past and perhaps our future is just astonishing.

J. Craig Williams:

Icat is really astonishing. But the answer that the Trump administration’s going to give to the children being separated is no problem. We’ll just deport the families together.

Ediberto Román:

That is the position, right, of the new immigration czar Holman and the name is a little too close to comfort with my own last name in terms of that effort. It just strikes me as heartless because I think what people fail to recognize that much of the discussion with respect to undocumented immigration is basically fraught with half truths or downright lies. We need to appreciate the fact that undocumented immigration is not only something that stems from the interest of immigrants coming to this country and many times in these contexts coming without documentation or those seeking political asylum which would be legal, right, and those that are seeking political asylum, but also what’s not part of the debate ever. Part of the debate is what I’ve written about in my book, those damn immigrants, America’s Hysteria of Undocumented Immigration are the free writers that there is an economic demand created in this country for low wage workers that basically are individuals that no one in this country wants to take those jobs.

And when we look at all we have to do is look at our kitchen and open the refrigerator and see the vegetables, we eat the meat. We have particularly processed meats. These are jobs that Americans don’t want or take. And again, don’t believe what I’m saying. Look at the studies that occurred undertaken by the United States government, and this was under a Republican presidency under Bush’s presidency in particular, that looked at the economic consequences of undocumented immigration. And when states have not followed that route, states like Georgia and Alabama passed their own version of a restrictive essentially anti-immigrant policy, it costs their economy billions of dollars. So at the end of the day, this approach is foolhardy will lead to foolhardy for us because that iceberg lettuce that we will buy in the cheapest form of lettuce that I can think of that used to be a dollar or $2 right now in light of inflation that’s going to cost eight 10 or more dollars and it’s going to all hurt us.

So undocumented immigrants are vital cogs to our economy. And again, I won’t basically ask you to believe me, I would ask you to look at studies conducted just a couple of months ago in September by the Brookings Institute and September study found undocumented immigrants provide a significant boon to our economy, in particular with respect to the taxes they pay versus the benefits that we often hear politicians speaking to that suggest that they are taking dollars and taking benefits that you and I would be entitled to. And that’s just not the case. A immigration law called Ira Ira of 1996 forbade immigrants, undocumented immigrants from any access to government law. Just, and if I may, I know this is a bit long-winded, but I would just want to point out one thing that in this study, a comprehensive study by the National Academics of Academies of Science and Engineering and medicine found that immigrants on average, undocumented immigrants put into the economy and pay taxes of $1,300 each year.

More than anything they cost our economy and the government and over the course of their lives, nearly $250,000 in taxes that they pay and don’t receive any benefits from. So this narrative largely hateful and xenophobic narrative, it’s just not accurate. And again, you could look at US studies, studies conducted by the government, studies conducted by conservative groups like the Cato Institute. You could look at this brooking studies that I’ll be happy to share with you afterwards. That is by form, not a hard left leaning institute that examines their impacts, finds time and time again that immigrants are net bloom to our economy, a benefit to our economy. And yet because they have no voice, they’re easy targets by what I consider political demagogue.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, thank you for that. It’s about time for us to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Lawyer to Lawyer. I’m joined by professor et Alberto Rahman. He’s the director of Immigration and Citizenship Initiatives at the Florida International University College of Law. Right before the break, you were citing some numbers and I read Heather Co Richardson fairly often. She cites the Congressional Budget Office estimates that mass deportation is going to cost 88 billion a year and that Bloomberg is totaling up your numbers and putting them at about a hundred billion dollars a year in taxes, which to me sounds like about 180 billion hit to our economy, let alone the numbers that are going to consequence because we don’t have people in the fields picking and we don’t have a lot of staff for medical, we don’t have a lot of staff for hotels. We don’t have a lot of, as you mentioned, that low cost staff that is readily available from immigration that occurs across our border. What are your thoughts?

Ediberto Román:

You’re hitting the nail on the head that those are studies I’m familiar with. Those are some of those studies I actually addressed in my book, Those Damn Immigrants. But even studies there are as recent as two months ago, I gave you the Brookins Institute study and references made in there, but also the Center for Immigrant Rights also examined these issues and pointed out that overall undocumented immigrants, and we need to appreciate this, that these are not individuals that are just stealing money from people off the streets. They have jobs and they’re paying things like social security taxes. And in that study, that study examined by the Senate for Immigrant Studies pointed out that undocumented immigrants paid over 25 billion in social security taxes. And again, it’s a boon. The approach, and I’ve often written about it and try to speak to it, is very easy. It’s very easy to scapegoat and I’ve drawn parallels to it in other writings, but we need to appreciate that when a demagogue or a populace or cowardly frankly politician, be it Democrat or Republican wants to target people, what’s the easiest person to target?

Those that are voiceless and immigrants in general tend not to have much of a voice, but particularly undocumented immigrants have no voice because they are no one’s constituents, there are no congressional representative. And true that they may have come across the border undocumented, but if we recognize that industry like meat packing industry agriculture, and it’s just not people picking fields, the houses we live in, these are done by low wage, but skilled workers, dare I say, I would not want to be living in a house where the effort at work, particularly living in south Florida and protections with it in terms of individuals that are doing that work, do it at a level that basically our lives are depending on it service industries, not only the hotel restaurant, but if you are the average New Yorker where I’m from, you go down midtown or other nicer areas, the number of nannies that are there in terms of individuals that are raising our children, these individuals are not only providing an economic boom to our country, they’re indispensable to our country.

And it’s these industries that are basically calling them creating the economic demand and yet we don’t hold them accountable. And instead of only targeting immigrants, I think we should recognize and engage and reform to force businesses particularly in those fields, to basically contribute to the government, to various programs to provide some rights and protections to not only immigrants but the rest of us because they’re getting free. Essentially what tantamount to free cheap labor. And at the end of the day, politicians just attack immigrants despite their economic boom. They were both recognized and no one holds them to account what we’re going to have between the terrorist proposal and mass deportation devastation. I predict to our economy and there’s no frankly defense of with respect to it other than what I believe what’s going to actually happen as it’s happened in the past high profile raids.

But once politician and local governments really appreciate the impact of mass deportation, I think those are going to be showcase opportunities and not mass deportation. Mind you, this is not just one-sided because despite the fact that immigrants are an economic boon, there are sanctuary cities and cities where there’ve been mass busing of undocumented immigrants like New York, like Chicago among a hosts of other and particularly in blue states. That’s a real issue and a real strain on local economies and local governments with respect to them. And I think things need to be done with respect to that and hopefully we can have an honest and open conversation concerning those issues because there’s a real issue with respect to drugs for national security and the strain on local economies, but the answer isn’t to demonize a group that overall provides huge benefits to our society.

J. Craig Williams:

Let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts of this. President Trump has indicated he’s going to declare a national emergency and use an act from 1768 to use the military for mass deportations. I’ve read through that act. It doesn’t seem to me that he can use the military. That seems to be a prohibition against using our military against domestically. Even if you declare a national emergency, the statute seems to say it needs a war.

Ediberto Román:

Yeah, I don’t see how that’s going to work. And at least one branch, we talked about it before we went on air in terms of our respective service. For example, the United States Marine are by mandate, by their established, their enactment are to focus on foreign lands in terms of any activities, the only thing I can envision is try to using the National Guard with respect to this. Frankly, it’s going to be unworkable and the amount of abuses. I literally have told my children, I have two sons, that they could be easily mistaken as Arian, and the other one happens to my middle son who’s kind of my mini me looks much more Latino, but particularly with respect to him and his fiance, I say once you leave the Miami area, I’m going to, and I’ve actually been cited in newspapers saying it, I’m going to recommend individuals to have their passports, to have their documentation and then there before the grace what’ll happen at stops and the likelihood of abuses and self-help in areas where we’ve already stoked the fires.

All we have to think about is Springfield, Ohio and the lies associated with the legal Haitian immigrants that were there and accusations of eating animals. It’s going to stir a fervor of hate and I think eventually violence with respect to this. But getting to your point, yeah, I think it’s really problematic and dangerous. I think of Kent State during my generation when I was a child in 1960s at war protestors where there were people killed for engaging in these activities, and I am really fearful of what blunder bus and hate driven policies may. The abuses that will occur not only to immigrants, but to legal permanent residents and US citizens.

J. Craig Williams:

It is going to be a big change, but it’s time for us to take another break. We’ll be right back and welcome back to lawyer to lawyer. I’m back with Professor Eddie Berto Roan. We’ve been discussing immigration in some of the nuts and bolts of how this is going to work. You mentioned in the very beginning that we may be seeing in tournament camps and roundups. How is it going to work? I mean, especially with all this sanctuary cities, I’ve read that there are some seven or eight sanctuary states and then within them many sanctuary cities. How’s that going to play out?

Ediberto Román:

Who knows? I mean, to put it bluntly, we’ve already had several governors, including I believe the governor of Illinois and New York to proclaim there are not going to assist. But then we have other states and sheriffs, I just heard this morning in one of the counties here in Florida, basically welcoming ice and open arms with respect to this roundup. But I don’t think frankly, they have a concrete plan. And once again, at the end of the day, I don’t think it needs to be that planned out. I think the irony will be when those 55 to 57% of Hispanic males that voted for Trump find themselves perhaps in a precarious situation to prove they shouldn’t be deported, the irony is so rich. I don’t know how else to describe it other than shaking my head, but I don’t think they have it really well planned out.

I think they’re going to, again, target cities and locales. I wouldn’t be surprised with the governor in Texas and his willingness to take positions with respect to immigrants to have that be one of the first locales and it’ll likely occur in red states at first, and then there’ll be challenges. There’ll be court challenges and maybe injunctions to stop this, but I think overall we’re going to see a lot of abuses to US citizens and residents before it’s all said and done. I think frankly, it’ll be impossible of late. I’ve been hearing from the immigrant SA Holman that the initial targets will be criminals, and I think that’s prudent that sound, but that’s not that different from what Obama President Obama and President Biden did. If they try to use prosecutorial discretion to focus on criminals, either those that have entered the country with criminal backgrounds or those committing crimes, I don’t think you’re going to find too many Democrats or Republicans or even immigrants rights advocates like myself.

They’re going to argue against them. The fear I have is that when we have hardworking individuals that are coming to this country, largely invited by big business are going to be round up. And how about those that are in mixed families, US citizens that may have an undocumented family member, immigrants saw our home and says, we’ll deploy ’em all. They can all leave. And you would think in the 21st century when we’ve seen so many advances in human rights and frankly a more egalitarian and welcoming country with respect to all of us in it, we have kind of a heartless mentality with respect to even our own citizens.

J. Craig Williams:

It seems that way. It sounds like it’s going to get worse. Are we going to be seeing the military or whoever ICE is going around, knocking on doors and pulling over cars or picking people off the streets? How is mass deportation going to work?

Ediberto Román:

I think it’s going to be targeted. It’ll be targeted in places that are welcoming or there’ll be agreements. Has there been 2 87 agreements between local law enforcement and federal officials and locales that are largely going to be supportive of these raids and that’s going to have a chilling effect in other communities? It won’t work with respect to the 11 or so million that are believed to be in this country. And that number’s bantered about quite a lot. But when we think about the overall numbers of individuals in this country, and another matter that I’ve written about, there’s a lot of hysteria because when you think about 11 million relative to about 350 million or some estimates are as low as 320 million of individuals in this country, that number isn’t that large, particularly when so many of them are in critical economic industries. I just don’t see how mass deportation is going to occur and be effective.

There is no way, and I don’t think looking at a recent 60 minutes report on it and interviewing with ice agents themselves, I don’t think they know how that could work. What the only way it would work is basically targeting and stereotyping individuals that look like immigrant and who looks like an immigrant in terms of it, at least in terms of my people. I happen to be Puerto Rican. We have people with blonde hair and green eyes, and we have people that are very dark and most of us are somewhere in between. Does that mean we look like immigrants or is there going to be a litmus test based on hair color accent or other issues? It’s absurd to think this is going to be effective. At the end of the day, it won’t be.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, we’ve just about reached the end of our program. Soo, it’s time to wrap up and get your final thoughts and perhaps your contact information if some of our listeners would like to reach out to you to discuss this a little further.

Ediberto Román:

Sure. Well, I think the points you raise were dead on. How could mass deportation work? I don’t see it working in terms of effectuating its goals to deport 11 million and it’s easy to target people who are no one’s, constituents who are voiceless. I think America’s greater than that. I think of the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty and that iconic poem of Emma Lazarus in terms of bring us your lectured and your weak, your poor yearning to be free. That’s what America’s about, a land of immigrants and what we’re turning to a land of scapegoating, and it’s a harbinger of what we’ve seen it the past horrific and the world’s arguably most horrific event when in the 1930s we had demagogues attacking, right, attacking German Jews, and no one can think a country could go to those levels. I don’t foresee it. I occurring to that level in terms of attempted genocide of an entire people, but without question, there will be human rights abuses.

I believe there may be internment camps and we’re going to revisit the horrific times of Japanese internment. At the very least, there’ll be efforts like family separation that are much worse, and what we need to do is have open and honest discussions with respect to the role of immigrants and instead of struggling, both Democrats and Republicans really think of things like having guest worker programs where we would have a legal form of immigration that would allow for immigrants to have rights, allow them to have employment protections, ensure that those industries that are benefiting from immigrants pay their share and not have this hysteria and this scapegoating that we see. In terms of my work, I write a great deal and speak on these issues a great deal. I see it as a professional and personal obligation. You can feel free to reach me at the Florida International University College of Law at Román E-R-O-M-A-N [email protected], Román [email protected], and I’m happy to continue to discuss these debate in an open forum with respect to even anyone from the Trump administration or others that have a different view because that’s what America should be about. Open and informed dialogue. I appreciate this opportunity and it was a pleasure.

J. Craig Williams:

Thank you very much. I just have one quick last question for you. For those immigrants that are listening, what’s your advice to them at this point?

Ediberto Román:

Brace yourself. I think Latinos and Latinas in particular general do not take what President Trump is promising for. Granted. There’s nothing to stop him. He has all branches of government in the federal level. They will attempt mass deportation, so those that are legal, permanent residents, those that are citizens have your documentation with you. Those that are undocumented, hopefully you are in locales where the governments value and appreciate the contribution to the economy and those that are in different locales, thinking about protecting yourselves as much as possible with respect to it, and those that are committing crimes should be deported frankly, and I applaud Democratic Republican governments administrations that do that, but if you are in states that are hostile, I really would revisit your priorities and go into locales where the demand is there for your work and the legal protections are there because we’re going to see some tough and dark times in the future.

J. Craig Williams:

Ediberto, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Ediberto Román:

It’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, here are a few of my thoughts about today’s topic. As a former member of the military myself, I really don’t want to see the military using used here in the United States against our own citizens or against those who are in our country. We have immigration and customs enforcement for that purpose. President Trump tried to build a wall in his first term, wasn’t successful overall and has pivoted here. Now. We’re going to deport undocumented immigrants and certainly as Professor Román says, there will be United States citizens swept up in that. There will be internment camps. There will be a significant number of things that are not the America that I grew up in. Well, that’s it for Craig’s rant on today’s topic. Let me know what you think, and if you like what you heard today, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. You can also visit us at legaltalknetwork.com where you can sign up for our newsletter. I’m Craig Williams. Thanks for listening. Please join us next time for another great legal topic. Remember, when you want legal think lawyer to lawyer.

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