Donald Trump came to power with the promise to close the doors to whom they seek to emigrate or find refuge in the country and to launch the largest deportation campaign in the history of the United States. In his first 100 days at the White House, which were fulfilled last Wednesday, President forced the limits of the Executive To fulfill his word, signing more than 170 decrees and pushing other agencies, such as the Pentagon or the Department of justice, to get involved in immigration management. The Administration resorted to the Armed Forces, Federal Agencies and Databases, and the State and Local Order forces, in addition to invoking laws only used in times of war to achieve the most radical changes in migratory matters.
“Crimigration” advances
Lady Junek Vargas LeónTeacher in International Studies from the national Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), understands that a “crime” narrative was consolidated with the arrival of Trump to the US. “Current immigration policy is not only aimed at curbing the arrival of new migrants, but to reconfigure the system to facilitate a ‘normalization’ of mass deportation”León explains in dialogue with Page/12. For its part Michelle MittelstadtDirector of Communication of the Institute of Migration Policy, argues: “This has been one of the most transcendental periods, if not the most transcendental, in immigration policy in decades. The administration has fulfilled its promises to generate shock and flood the area by promoting changes that affect all areas of the American immigration system. “
The Trump government takes a breast out of the increase in The arrests of migrantsthat They doubled compared to the previous administration of an average of 310 a day to more than 650according to figures from Migration Policy Institute. Taking data from the Federal Registry and some media, Trump seems to be on his way to deport approximately half a million people this year, a figure less than 685 thousand deportations recorded in 2024 under the presidency of Joe Biden and quite far from the million promised by the Republican tycoon.
According to Filtrations to the American press, the distance between expectation and reality generated some discomfort doors inside the government, which decided to counterattack by launching a campaign promoting “self -portedment”: that migrants decide on their own to return to their countries of origin. There were dozens of cases of arrests from US citizens, permanent and migrants residents with legal status. For León, the government of Trump “seeks to create an environment of horror and uncertainty among migrantsinstead of structurally addressing long -term migratory problems. “
Resistance to harassment
The Trump administration also revoked a series of migratory programs and benefits created by its predecessor, including the humanitarian parole for Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti, the status of temporary protection and the CBP One application, which allowed to make an appointment to legally enter the border. In the face of the opacity of official data, León He believes that there are “clear indications that Massive detention and deportation operations are being executed, especially in vulnerable communities and with limited legal resources“That is where resistance actions such as the organization arise Neighborhood unionthat patrol the streets of San Diego and Los Angeles to identify potential raids.
“The goal is to see anything, but if we see something we inform the community. We do this every day in different areas of Los Angeles, seven days a week, and we serve the phone 24 hours a day,” explains Ron Gochez, a member of the organization, during a tour of the southern Los Angeles, a working class region with a strong presence of immigrants. The activists gather at 5:30 in the morning and leave in search of cars with polarized glass, of certain models, parked in double row, or other features that indicate that it could be agents of the immigration service. At the end of the routes, Unión del Barrio places the images on social networks so that the neighbors know if their area is free of raids.
The migrant narrative as “foreign enemy”
In FebruaryTrump’s government began using the American naval base in Guantanamo in Cuba to retain migrantsmoving them from detention centers in the United States. Initially the authorities sent 178 Venezuelan migrants there, which spent several weeks imprisoned before being deported to Venezuela, causing the rejection of international organizations. Since then the authorities discreetly moved more people to the base and then send them to other countries. 45 people are currently being held there, according to the newspaper The New York Times.
The use of the Naval Base of Guantanamo as a migration detention space is not new, remember Leónand “resuming this model is not just an operational decision, It is a political statement on how migrants are conceived: not as subjects of rights, but as threats to contain“. In mid -March Trump decided to invoke the Foreign enemies lawa little known and used in the past only in times of war, To expel hundreds of migrants to a megacárcel in El Salvador. In total, the government has already sent more than 200 people to the Central American country, without the possibility of appealing their cases before a court or communicating with their families or lawyers.
Last Thursday a Federal Judge of Texas considered illegal the use Trump makes of this law of the 18th century to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. The Supreme Court and several district courts temporarily paralyzed expulsions under this law alleging lack of procedural guarantees, but Rodríguez is the first federal judge who considers that its use is illegal. “The president cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion in the US,” Rodriguez concluded in his 36 -page opinion.
According to Mittelstadt, “the relocation of migrants to prison in El Salvador, and rumors about the possible consideration of sending migrants and asylum seekers to countries such as Rwanda and Libya, mark a radical break with the previous practices of the US and raise doubts about their commitment to the defense of fundamental human rights.” To the adverse judgments in justice, the Executive responds by calling the judges of “insubordinates” and “left -wing” and two Friday the FBI arrested a magistrate of minor instance in Wisconsin accusing her of preventing the arrest of an undocumented migrant.
A policy with “devastating” effects
The case of one of the men sent to the megacárcel del Cecot, Kilmar Abrego Garcíabecame a flag of the Democratic opposition and the human rights defenders. The Court ordered the Government to facilitate its return, but both the United States and El Salvador resist. The migrant of Salvadoran origin I was based in the US for more than a decade and He had a legal status that protected him from deportation. The government, however, arrested and deported it, accusing it without evidence of being part of the MS-13 gang.
The jurists warn about an imminent constitutional crisis if the Executive Power does not comply with judicial decisions. “So far, although the president expressed his deep frustration for the limitations of the courts to the migratory actions of his administration, he also stated that he respects the Supreme Court,” Mittelstadt explains. For Junek, the ‘crime’ narrative implemented by Trump “has deep effects on migrant communities, many times more devastating than the operations themselves.” The international migration specialist at the Northern Border College believes that “instead of being a phenomenon of human rights, migration is being treated as a matter of national security and territorial control.”
