The Fear Is the PointThe administration won’t have time, money or resources to enact mass deportations right away. But they can scare the hell out of everybody.
IN A SEMINAL 2018 ARTICLE FOR THE ATLANTIC, Adam Serwer wrote, of then-President Donald Trump’s immigration policy and general approach to governance, “The Cruelty is the Point.” But as the pieces begin to come together on Trump 2.0’s approach to mass deportations, a different sensation is emerging: fear. When it comes to Trump world, the projection of fear is not a bug: It is a feature of their revitalized deportation machine. Just this past week, according to an NBC News report, the Trump transition team warned of “showcase” workplace raids, possibly in the Washington D.C. area, which has activist and immigrant communities on high alert in neighboring Maryland and Virginia. Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming border czar, separately told NBC he plans to bring a “fresh” idea to the table—a hotline for Americans to report undocumented immigrants they suspect of having committing crimes, which is of course ripe for abuse. And in that same report, Homan casually remarked that people without criminal records will get caught in the deportation dragnet, too. Why such public gestures? Because the incoming administration’s immigration approach is more about generating shock than awe. After all, while he is boasting publicly, Homan has privately told Republican lawmakers to “temper their expectations” for the promised millions of deportations on account of “limited resources,” CNN reported. Without the benefit of time and money, Rolling Stone wrote, the Trump administration will turn to “generating relentless propaganda” to create a media spectacle. And as for Homan’s “fresh” idea of creating a hotline, well, there is already an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tipline where you can report crimes like document and benefit fraud, illegal immigration, human trafficking, and many other offenses. It has existed for more than twenty years, and it takes 15,000 calls a month. Trump would hardly be the first president to use the mere specter of harsh enforcement and deportations as a means of achieving larger policy objectives. Prior White House occupants have done as much to try and discourage migration to the southern border. But the president-elect and his team have whipped up fear to unrivaled levels following an election in which they ran explicitly on immigration and migration being out of control. Rick Swartz, who founded the National Immigration Forum and worked on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (also known as the “Reagan Amnesty”), said he has been preparing his immigration listserv for aggressive, fear-stoking actions by the administration. “I’ve been warning them, watch out for these kinds of ideas, they could well be the backbone of trying to jack up deportations, and 1-800-DEPORT is one of them,” he said, pointing to possible bounties for undocumented immigrants as well. Though such policies may seem far fetched and extreme, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Trump’s team actually deploys them. Others are trying to, as well. An incoming Missouri senator, Republican David Gregory, already introduced a bill that would give residents of the state $1,000 a pop to turn in undocumented immigrants as part of a bounty program. But if generating fear is the goal of the incoming administration, it begs the question: What does it accomplish? The answer, according to lawyers, activists, and Democrats—but also Trump-backers—is self-deportation: The hope that immigrants in the country illegally, many for years, will be so scared by the aggressive enforcement messaging that they will choose to leave of their own accord. For many, like Swartz, self-deportation is the strategic objective. It’s something Trump-friendly sources are increasingly mentioning, as well. “The fear is the point,” Swartz told The Bulwark. “The strategy is to squeeze and threaten. The administration can be tied in knots on policies and practices, as opposed to just scaring the shit out of so many people.” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a longtime immigration restrictionist, said as much to USA Today, calling the hotline an “important message to send.” “Part of the point of it is to make it clear to illegal aliens that they’re not untouchable, that the party’s over,” he said. “It’s useful, if nothing else, to send a message, both to the public and to illegal immigrants, that just because you’re here and not raping anybody doesn’t mean that you’re untouchable.” SELF-DEPORTATION FIRST MADE ITS WAY TO national consciousness when Mitt Romney advocated for it during a Florida presidential primary debate in 2012. But the American Immigration Council said it was better described at the time as a policy of “attrition through enforcement”—basically making the lives of undocumented immigrants so unbearable that they have no choice but to leave. The strategy is “currently embodied in state laws that include provisions denying education, transportation, and even basic services like water and housing to anyone who cannot prove legal immigration status,” the council wrote, arguing states that attempted to roll out this plan did little more than “undermine basic human rights, devastate local economies, and place unnecessary burdens on U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants.” Self-deportation has received renewed support in recent years from figures on the right like Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, as well as Krikorian and anti-immigration groups like the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FAIR). “It’s a very sad day when the U.S. government is trying to govern by fear and by terrorizing people who have been here a long time, working and contributing,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of the immigrant rights group America’s Voice. “It’s very cruel and very unfortunate. What’s important to remember is most of the people that are going to be caught up in this are going to be like the workers in Bakersfield, California, who have worked in this country for decades, have U.S. citizen kids and spouses, and are American in everything but a piece of paper.” Cardenas was referring to ICE raids in Bakersfield last week that targeted businesses with day laborers and field workers, leaving “acres of orange fields” unpicked in Kern County, according to Cal Matters. In Pasadena, Angelica Salas, who has been the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) for 25 years, told The Bulwark she has had to deal with dual challenges over the past week: raging fires that have devastated homes and threatened her own on the one hand, and rising fears about deportations within the community on the other. Recently, her organization had to tamp down concerns from immigrants who saw a Department of Homeland Security van parked in front of a popular Pasadena grocery store, Vallarta. They sent the message that it wasn’t immigration agents circling the neighborhood, but officials with FEMA. “The bigger cruelty is for 40 years, we haven’t had legalization, so the lack of status gets so magnified during moments like this,” she said. Salas says that while self-deportation is a concern, it is not the only one. She recalled a Bush-era raid she dealt with in 2008 in the San Fernando valley, when ICE only had a list of eight undocumented workers but was able to arrest 40 people who admitted to being undocumented. Such raids are not dependent on the evidence agents have, but on immigrants incriminating themselves, she cautioned. “You don’t have to admit that you don’t have documents,” she said. “If you don’t admit it to them, what’s the evidence? That we’re Latino? That we’re brown?” IT IS IN THIS ENVIRONMENT OF FEAR that the controversial Laken Riley Act must be considered. The bill, which would require detention of undocumented immigrants accused of nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting, received surprising bipartisan support last week. But that was before details came out about its costs. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) outlined his concerns on X, where he said that the legislation would cost an estimated $83 billion over three years without appropriating any money to implement. It’s “a pretend bill,” Murphy wrote, “a mandate with no money!” A Democrat who has been in constant contact with aides on the Hill said that Republicans who had been pushing the Laken Riley Act largely as a political messaging exercise did not anticipate that it would become law. “Republicans were surprised by how many Democrats folded like cheap fucking suits,” the Democrat added. The question now is whether Democrats—as part of the amendment process for the Laken Riley Act—will be able to push meaningfully in favor of shielding Dreamers, those immigrants brought to the country as children, many of whom are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has been under threat since Trump’s first term. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Co.) offered an amendment to the Laken Riley Act to adjust the status of DACA recipients to allow them to remain in the country, Migrant Insider reported, but it looks increasingly likely to be excluded. The result could further underscore how the Democratic party, which once demanded a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants or protection for Dreamers as a condition for agreeing to sharper border enforcement measures, now has little leverage to achieve its aims. And it’s left members of the immigrant community even more anxious about the future under Trump. “The community is very fearful of what is going to happen,” said former Chicago congressman Luis Gutiérrez, an immigration champion who is working behind the scenes to help immigrants. “I’ve spoken to DACA recipients who see me in the street and ask what protections will be available to them.” Faced with few legislative options, some Democrats have hinted at trying a more personal touch. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has increasingly bucked his party—he co-sponsored the Laken Riley Act and recently accepted an offer to meet with Trump—suggested that he would advocate for Dreamers during the meeting. His office did not respond to a request for comment as to whether he did. A Democrat who worked for an outside group that helped elect Fetterman in 2022 said the senator is trying to show he’s not a status-quo Democrat, hailing from a swing state that Trump won. “The jury is still out on whether that’s a good or bad strategy,” the Democrat said. “What’s uniquely interesting about Fetterman is that many Latinos in Pennsylvania are Puerto Rican, so they’re not immigrants, and this doesn’t affect them. His calculus appears to be, ‘Can I pick up new Republican middle-of-the-road voters who see me as open minded’ while he’s turning off base Democrats that got him elected.” Republicans in the Trump era have been comfortable holding Dreamers hostage in immigration negotiations. But Trump has offered mixed signals in the past. He first campaigned on “immediately” ending DACA before saying he had “great heart” for Dreamers when elected. GOP operative Steve Cortes, who has met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and is helping to place Republicans with the Trump transition team, told The Bulwark that Republicans will not be coming around on citizenship for Dreamers precisely because of Joe Biden’s actions on immigration and the border. “Part of the problem with what Biden did is you can’t get to reasonable places when you’ve been so unreasonable,” he said. “Our position has hardened on that point.” But acknowledging the sympathy Dreamers engender from voters, Cortes said it is also “not politically or culturally possible to kick them out.” “I think it’s possible Trump comes around on some kind of legal status for DACA people,” he said. “He’s more moderate than some of his top policy people are willing to be.” One Last ThingA sign of the times via the Houston Chronicle: America First Legal, a nonprofit founded and run by Stephen Miller, submitted a brief to the Texas Supreme Court defending Attorney General Ken Paxton’s push to shutter a Catholic shelter that houses asylum seekers in El Paso, arguing humanitarian organizations like it are encouraging illegal border crossings. 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The Fear Is the Point
January 15, 2025
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