San Fernando Valley Sun: Immigrant Rights Groups Prepare for Another Trump Presidency
By Semantha Raquel Norris
Immigrants, especially those from Latin America, have been a central focus of President-Elect Donald Trump’s election campaign, and immigrant rights groups have been preemptively preparing for the next four years.
“It has been a long and exhausting election season, marked by ongoing displays of racism and xenophobia that have once again surged to new heights,” Martha Arévalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) Los Angeles, said in a statement the morning after the election.
“It is a difficult moment for many who fight for social justice in this country and to relive the trauma of the past,” she continued. “CARECEN stands with immigrants and all marginalized groups in solidarity and resistance as we continue to organize and secure protections.”
Jorge Mario Cabrera, director of communications for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) said leading up to the election, they were focusing on mobilizing the 4 million qualified Latino voters to the polls.
Now their focus has turned towards “coordinating with local, regional and national partners to ensure that our resources are available,” said Cabrera, so that people can “get a resource for legal services, deportation, defense, naturalization, know your rights, content, etc.”
In preparation for the threat of mass deportation, CHIRLA has been working to re-establish the rapid rate response networks that were active during Trump’s first administration, and are “working with partners to ensure that our network of services is connected – that we’re ready to create opportunities for the immigrant community to find the education and the services that they need.”
For immigrant rights organizations such as CHIRLA, CARECEN and the Council of Mexican Federations in North America (COFEM), the work of obtaining more rights and a better life for immigrants in the United States is a continuous battle that doesn’t stop at elections, or what party is in office.
“What we do every year, whether elections are happening or not, [is] we help document people,” said Omar Pichardo, a field organizer at COFEM. “We’re trying to have these dialogues [about pathways to citizenship] with elected officials, regardless of who [is elected], because we want to be able to have immigration reform as soon as possible.”
The last major immigration reform enacted in the United States was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which legalized around 2.7 million undocumented residents.
“People … who’ve been in this country for decades, demand that we, that this nation, have an answer for them after 40 years almost of inaction on immigration,” said Cabrera, “The political will and the might, the strength of will in Congress, has been missing on both sides of the aisle.”
Sen. Alex Padilla agreed that “modernizing our immigration system is long, long overdue,” and that, “it’s not a matter of, do we provide some legalization and an eventual pathway to citizenship for a lot of long-term residents of the United States or secure the border. We can and should do both.”
California understands the upside of embracing immigrants, who have massively contributed to our state and economy, said Padilla.
“We’re the most populous state in the nation, the most diverse state in the nation, home to more immigrants than any state in the nation, and we have the largest economy of any state in the nation,” said Padilla. “That’s the case because of the contributions of so many immigrants, not despite them.”
A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that in 2022 undocumented people in California paid $8.5 billion in tax revenue.
Pichardo noted that although undocumented people pay taxes and contribute to programs like Social Security and Medicare, they do not receive those benefits.
“None of that is coming back to our communities, so there’s no relief for them,” said Pichardo.
Additionally, Cabrera said, programs that have “provided support and relief to our community,” such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), are just that – “temporary measures” that a Trump administration could, and has threatened to, end.
“Having DACA has been a gift for many, many people,” said Cabrera. “However, DACA has also been a nightmare of living in limbo. It’s a temporary program … and what we need are permanent solutions that will allow people to invest in their lives and be even bigger contributors to our society.”
Arévalo called for President Joe Biden’s administration and current elected officials, “to use their remaining time in office to secure relief and protections for all immigrants,” and “deliver a redesignation of TPS for Central American countries.”
Padilla blames much of the halt in immigration policy in recent years on former President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“Sadly, a lot of the political rhetoric has gotten in the way of doing, not just what’s in the best interest of immigrants and immigrant families, but communities and our economy,” said Padilla. “[Trump’s] impact on the Republican Party, and politics more broadly, is by far the biggest reason we haven’t made more progress on [immigration policy] in the last eight years.”
Anti-immigrant rhetoric that has scapegoated immigrant communities and spread false narratives – such as that Haitian migrants are eating pets or that Latino migrants are taking “Black jobs” – are creating additional problems for immigrant rights advocates.
“Perhaps one of the most detrimental aspects of this election is the ongoing barrage of attacks against Latinos and immigrants,” said Cabrera. “There is a price to pay for that kind of vitriol coming from anti-immigrant [groups]. That turns into actual crimes of hate.”
The 2022 “Hate Crime in California” report, indicated that anti-Black, anti-Latino and anti-Asian hate crimes increased 156% between 2019 and 2022.
Pichardo said that COFEM tries to combat these narratives by highlighting the positive impact that immigrants bring to the U.S.
“We are a strong community. We know what we contribute. We know our worth,” said Pichardo. “It’s very important to always remind our communities about their worth … always remind them about their humanity.”
He added that “immigration is not only a Latino issue,” and hopes that different communities work together to push immigration reform because, “when we come into solidarity, we can get more things accomplished.”
“Immigrants are the quintessential American,” added Cabrera. “This nation was made up of immigrants seeking refuge, seeking a new home, seeking to start again, seeking an opportunity, and that’s what new immigrants are doing.”
Cabrera hopes that “our democracy will withstand these attacks,” acknowledging that “hope alone doesn’t drive us. Justice drives us. A desire to have a society that welcomes all and treats everyone with justice drives us.”
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