It’s Trump’s Policy, But Both Parties Set the Stage for Mass Deportations

Speaker 1: This morning, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, Tom Homan is set to return to the White House. The president elect announced Homan will serve as border czar. Homan led the zero tolerance policy that separated parents from their children at the border.

Speaker 2: The deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights says Chicago will not be bullied because of its welcoming city ordinance. Pastor Emma Lozano, who famously provided sanctuary at her Humboldt Park church for Elvira Arellano, is calling on President Biden to act now.

Speaker 3: To give temporary protection status for those people that have been living here for decades. The important demands are that the administration right now can start closing cases. What we will not do is go back into the shadows. What we will not do is stop loving on one another and we're going to continue to organize.

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. The first weeks of transition into Donald Trump's second term have been filled with just an absurd parade of cabinet and staffing announcements. It's almost as if he's intentionally choosing people who are either the least qualified or most hostile to the roles with which they'll be tasked. I'm reminded of the conversation we had on this show the weekend before the election with historian Anne Applebaum. Check it out in our podcast feed if you missed it. She warned us that this is how autocracies always begin, with outlandish actions that are meant to strain credulity because they're actually tests and conditioning for what's to come.

Will you go along with this? Oh, yes? Well, how about this? Are you willing to accept that one as normal, too? Can we then agree that anything the leader says or does is definitionally okay? It's a training of the collective mind. Then there have been another set of appointments. The ones that are more like true preparation for the new administration's primary agenda. The mass deportation of people whom Donald Trump has said are, "poisoning the blood of the United States." Poisoning the blood, an unapologetically bigoted and vile idea that is an actual quote of Adolf Hitler, but which more than 76 million voters have nonetheless endorsed, at least tacitly.

Now Donald Trump will try to clean our national blood using mass deportation. What will mass deportation look like? What will it require logistically and politically? What will it mean for the community in which you live? We'll raise those questions this week with reporter Jasmine Garsd. She is an immigration correspondent for NPR and has covered Latin American culture for many years as well. Jasmine, welcome to Notes from America.

Jasmine Garsd: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Kai Wright: Thanks for coming, Jasmine. Mass deportation was the slogan of the Trump campaign this year. As we now move beyond the slogan part, explain to us how Donald Trump and his advisers are defining the term mass deportation. Is there a specific number or goal they have in mind?

Jasmine Garsd: Yes, I mean, they haven't been specific about how they're going to do it. Trump has said 20 million people will be mass deported. Now, there's an estimated 11.7 million undocumented people living in the US. Vice President elect J.D. Vance has said it could be about like a million people per year deported and there hasn't been specifications of how to do it. I know Trump has made these bombastic promises of revisiting laws like the Alien Enemies Act. Also, what we've heard a lot about is workplace raids, is bringing back workplace raids again.

That's really the clearest sense that we're getting. Tom Homan, who was appointed last week as border czar, he said he was going to start with criminals, people with arrest warrants, that then there would be a next step which would be people after that. He has said it would be sweeping, unprecedented, historic. These have been the promises of the campaign.

Kai Wright: Can we just go back to those numbers for a minute? There is, by best estimate something like 11, 12 million people living in the country who are undocumented. Donald Trump has given numbers as large as 20 million that he says we ought to deport. I'm somebody who likes to believe particularly Donald Trump when he says something, is there something in that? Is that just random oh, he just made up a number. Or is there reason to believe that in fact he's got visions beyond people who are tech who are legally undocumented?

Jasmine Garsd: Well, I think there's a couple of things at play here. First of all, we've already been through a lot of this. What we've saw in the last administration is that then President Donald Trump, he would pass these very bombastic, drastic executive orders. I'm thinking of, for example, the infamous Muslim ban, and he would pass this, and it wouldn't stick. The Supreme Court a couple of months later or soon thereafter would bring it down. In speaking to legal scholars, I think we also have to think about the effect that the attempt to pass it has, the effect that the rhetoric has. It might not stick.

Keep in mind, we have a more conservative Supreme Court this time around but even though it doesn't stick, it breeds this intense terror in communities, in immigrant communities, in communities of color. A lot of legal scholars I've spoken to have said part of the point might not be for it to stick. You know what I mean?

Kai Wright: Yes, I do. Still, I mean because this is something that people on both the left and right always say about Donald Trump and the things he says he wants to do. It's like, oh, he'll never be able to actually do it. It's way too complicated to pull that off but on this one, is it just as a thought experiment is it too complicated? Can the federal government deport as many people as he's saying using existing policy and law?

Jasmine Garsd: It would be extraordinarily expensive. What I do think we're going to see is a state by state level. It's going to vary from state to state and most legal scholars I've spoken to think this is what's going to happen. You have states like Florida, like Texas, like Arizona which have already been trying to pass these really draconian immigration, local immigration laws. Sometimes they're being held up in court. In Florida, you already have super draconian, the most drastic immigration laws in the country right now. I think under a Trump administration, these states are going to get a green light, like a carte blanche to do what they want to do with immigration.

I think we're also going to start seeing, which we saw in his last administration the rise of the activist state. States like California, Oregon, I could probably say Illinois, which will push back, and we saw that in his last administration. We saw Donald Trump try to withhold funds from police departments in California. We saw it eventually be struck down because California pushed back and we're going to see more of that, I think.

Kai Wright: Listeners, we can take your calls and questions for Jasmine about the coming mass deportation. Is there something you don't understand you want to get clarity on? 844-745-TALK, you can call or text. Unprecedented, Jasmine, was the catch word of the first Trump administration. I think it's already come up in our conversation tonight. Is there a precedent for this scale of deportations that Trump is promising, or is it, in fact, unprecedented? Is it a truly unique moment in our history?

Jasmine Garsd: We have seen pushes like these. He keeps referencing an Eisenhower program which is named after a racial slur for Mexican immigrants. He does talk about invoking the Alien Enemies Act, but I think what he's promising is something truly unprecedented, whether or not the resources will exist. Again, that depends on Congress largely, but we have a Conservative Congress now. I think it's also important to think about how the situation right now is also unprecedented. You almost have this alignment of the stars for something unprecedented with the Supreme Court, with Congress, with Donald Trump in office. Again, I think a lot of it is going to boil down to state by state.

Kai Wright: It's easy to talk about this stuff in abstract terms, these macro numbers and enforcement policies and political talking points and the like, but removals at this scale, if they're achieved, this is going to drastically reshape people's communities and families. Just what do you think this would look like actually on a neighborhood and communal level?

Jasmine Garsd: I'm so glad you asked that question because I think, I've been hearing a lot of the question of, well, could it be done and how could it be done? Not a lot on the granular level about what this would look like for neighborhoods, for schools, for suddenly seeing that the classmate next to you is no longer there. I think it would if it goes through it could potentially just alter the fabric of American life and not just of immigrant life. I think there's this distinction that's being made when in reality 11 million American citizens live in a mixed immigration status family. Mom is undocumented, Dad is undocumented, a spouse is undocumented.

I actually, for my work with NPR, I spent this week talking to families who would be affected. When you get on that granular level, when you talk to a dad in Long island who is trying to figure out how to tell his toddlers, hey, there's this really complicated situation and one day I might not be here and that might happen soon. That's where you really start seeing how the fabric would be changed. It's not just an emotional fabric, it's an economic fabric. When you talk to people who have experienced the family separation of having a family member deported, you're talking about a family's breadwinner often being removed. You're talking about people being removed from work sites when there's a labor shortage in the US, and so this is going to have some far reaching effects psychologically, economically and socially.

Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright and I'm talking with reporter Jasmine Garsd. She's an immigration correspondent for NPR. We can take your questions for Jasmine about the mass deportation operation that Donald Trump has vowed to begin immediately and for which he's already begun staffing up. You can call or text your questions and more just ahead.

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Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright, and I'm talking with reporter Jasmine Garsd, who is an immigration correspondent for NPR and has covered Latin American culture for some time as well. We can take your questions for Jasmine about the mass deportation operation that Donald Trump has vowed to begin right away and for which he's really already started staffing up. Let's go to Adam in Albany, New York. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam: Hi, thanks for having me, Jasmine. About the economic possibilities of mass deportation, I think everyone who's listening would agree socially it's just completely deplorable the idea that someone like a legal citizen, a child, might have an undocumented parent be deported. I don't think anyone's going to argue that that's horrible.

Kai Wright: We're losing you, Adam but I think I know where the question was going is what is the economic impact? We hear about the social and moral questions, but what about the economy and how this will impact communities that have a lot of immigrants, Jasmine?

Jasmine Garsd: Yes, I'm so glad you asked that, Adam. There's something really interesting that happened to me as I was traveling the country ahead of the election, which was on the one hand, I would see these rallies for Trump and there would be the chant of send them home, mass deportation, send them home. When I would sit one on one in a more intimate conversation with Trump supporters almost all the time, I would get this answer which was he can't possibly deport everyone because the economy will collapse. I think there's a double think happening about the economic impact.

I think the economic impact would be quite devastating. That's not just me thinking it. We know that in this country there is an aging population, there's a labor shortage. Before any of this election started, President Biden was getting letters from bipartisan business leader organizations asking, please, can we expedite work visas and work permits because there's a real labor shortage and there is an aging population. I think removing or the promise of removing 20 million people or probably more realistically, 11 million people is really shooting oneself in the economic foot.

Kai Wright: Jasmine, and for all these reasons I'm old enough to remember bipartisan agreement on the need for immigration reform that included both border security and a path to citizenship for people already here. I'm also old enough to remember a political strategy among Bush era Republicans to embrace immigration, given the conservative values in immigrant communities. A lot of this also was around economic questions like this. Where did all of that go, Jasmine? When did that line of thinking fully die?

Jasmine Garsd: That's a great question. I don't know where it went. I do remember as I was preparing to cover this election watching an old debate between Reagan and Bush Senior, and they're asked about immigration and the border. It's so interesting because they're trying to out nice each other. It's really mind blowing. They're trying to out nice each other on who can be a friendlier neighbor. Obviously, there's plenty of critiques later for economic and foreign policy. It's interesting because as I was watching that debate, I was thinking by any standard in this day and age, they wouldn't even be considered Democrats because Democrats moved center right in this election campaign on issues like immigration. When or how it happened, the fact of the matter is that the rhetoric has moved further Conservatives.

Kai Wright: Yes. A listener texts with a question, what about deporting naturalized citizens? What can you share about the probability of that happening?

Jasmine Garsd: Low. I've spoken to some respected legal scholars who have said it's a low. This would require some legal heavy lifting. That is very improbable. Again, I want to go back to this idea of throwing rhetoric out that is impossible or improbable. The point is in the messaging, and I cannot tell you how many immigrants and immigrant communities have shared this fear of, well, what if my dad is naturalized? What could happen there? Or birthright citizenship. That's the other big one that I hear a lot of. Could a Trump administration rescind birthright citizenship? Absolutely not. That's not what will happen but the promise was there.

Kai Wright: Is it absolutely not-- Wouldn't it take-- the birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution that says that if you were born in the United States, you are automatically a citizen. Couldn't the Supreme Court, couldn't a case come to the court that led them to change what the meaning of birthright citizenship?

Jasmine Garsd: It could. I mean, it could. I think it would be difficult. It would be really out there, and I think legal scholars that I've spoken to agree that it would be quite difficult. I think the administration honestly is going to focus more on deporting undocumented immigrants that are so called lower hanging fruit and strengthening-- there's already an existing network of partnerships across the country between local police and immigration enforcement. I think they're going to look more into that, at least at first.

Kai Wright: We have another listener and this relates to the conversation we're having. If both parents are undocumented but the child was born in the US what happens to the child?

Jasmine Garsd: That's a great question and right now it's very nebulous. Tom Homan has said recently in response to would you consider family separation again? He has said we would deport families. Of course, this would run into tremendous legal challenge because you can't deport a US citizen.

Kai Wright: Just to be clear, by birthright citizenship that child is a US citizen, is the point.

Jasmine Garsd: Absolutely, correct. What I have been hearing activists say is if you are in a situation where you're undocumented, I've been hearing activists and advocates say have a plan, be prepared. I spoke to one gentleman in Long island on Friday who his mother was deported when he was a teenager and no one had discussed the possibility of this. No one had discussed a plan B and suddenly he was an 18 or 19-year-old kid in charge of his 13-year-old brother with no idea what to do. What I'm hearing a lot from advocates is have emergency contacts. Be prepared.

Kai Wright: Just to underline you used the statistic earlier but to make sure this didn't go past people, that's, I think you said 11 million families in the United States are estimated have mixed status, meaning there are people in the family who are documented and US citizens are authorized in one way or another, and people who are here undocumented. That's 11 million families in the United States.

Jasmine Garsd: 11 million US citizens and nearly 28.2 million US residents have mixed families.

Kai Wright: It's more than I was saying. Yes, so 39 million families. This is relevant for that. That a huge, huge part of our country.

Jasmine Garsd: Yes.

Kai Wright: Are there specific groups or people, particularly nationalities who are most likely to be targeted under this plan?

Jasmine Garsd: Again, it's still really nebulous. What we have heard is workplace raids. We're hearing workplace raids over and over again. We're hearing people with criminal records or who have warrants as first tier. It's interesting because there's so much misinformation out there. One of the things that has been pretty stunning as a reporter is to hear immigrants say, "Well, I've been here for 30 years, so it's not going to come for me." If there's a workplace raid that won't differentiate really.

Kai Wright: It does not matter that you have been here for 30 years. Yes. Well, also on this question of criminality, this is the idea of dividing groups of immigrants into those that are undocumented immigrants, and to those that are here for some deserving reason, and then criminals, is an idea that goes back to the Obama administration. That's when I first started hearing that idea is we're going to focus on the criminals. At that time, there was a lot of reporting and I want to ask you if this is still the case, this idea of criminality, the overwhelming portion of the crimes that people who are undocumented that we're saying we're going to target, that they're being charged with are the crime of being in the country without authorization. Is that still true?

Jasmine Garsd: Yes. I'm so glad that you clarified that. When the administration says we're going to go after people with arrest warrants, they're not necessarily talking about that type of crime. It's so interesting because I think this election there's been a campaign of misinformation that has been absolutely astounding. One of the elements of it that has been quite overwhelming is the idea of a migrant crime wave. I cannot tell you how much I've heard about this when in reality the statistics show there isn't a migrant crime wave. We're not experiencing a migrant crime wave.

Kai Wright: It's just simple state of fact. Just let's linger on that for a minute. You're not qualifying that statement, as I hear you saying, it's just a fact. There is no migrant crime wave.

Jasmine Garsd: There's not a migrant crime wave. There's also, historically, there's this great Stanford University study which analyzed over a century of incarceration statistics and data. It just showed immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes because people want to protect their ability to stay in the country and yet, I also see the New York Post at my bodega every morning. If you were to go by the New York Post cover you would believe that in effect New York is under some kind of violent siege. I think there was a very effective fear campaign.

Kai Wright: Yes. Let's go to Candace in North Carolina. Candace, welcome to the Show.

Candace: Hi. Thank you. Really interesting. I love the way you guys are talking about this. Just to circle back, you were speaking to Republicans having once embraced immigration and come away from that. I'd like you to maybe comment on how the white Christian nationalist agenda in this country has perhaps influenced that turn to kick people out of this country.

Kai Wright: Thank you, Candace.

Jasmine Garsd: Sure.

Kai Wright: Yes, go ahead, Jasmine.

Jasmine Garsd: No, look I think there's journalists who cover white evangelism probably a lot better than I do but in terms of immigration, my interactions with that have been that that it ties in closely to reproductive rights. I remember very specifically, for example, a couple of months before the election going to the Midwest and speaking to some of Trump's base that is very evangelical and talking about a labor shortage. I posed the question, well, there's an aging population and there's a labor shortage. Immigrants really help fill that in. What do you make of that? The response was, well, we need to start making babies again.

I think from what I've read and from what I've experienced in conversation there is a tie in between concerns of population, and sometimes it's as explicit as the Great Replacement Theory. I've definitely heard that, but I think there is definitely a tie in with concerns about population decline, for sure.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Jim in Brick Township, New Jersey. Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim: Yes, hi. Thank you. I think we need to put this in perspective. Obama had a very robust deportation program. People on the left called him deporter in chief. Biden deferred asylum seekers to continue their staying on the Mexican side of the border, which was a Trump program. I'm a Democrat, but I think Trump is just being provocative and outrageous, getting us clutching our pearls, as they say, when he's going to initiate more serious threats toward democracy with the Justice Department weaponization.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that question, Jim. How big a difference is this from, in fact, organizers did call Barack Obama deporter in chief. How big a difference is this?

Jasmine Garsd: I think that's such a great question, Jim. I think that, yes, indeed, President Barack Obama did lead the biggest deportation in the largest numbers. I think that's something that's very alive in the collective memories of immigrant communities. The communities I've been speaking to, even on election night and afterwards, when I would ask, how scared are you of this incoming administration? I often have heard, well, we survived Obama, didn't we? That has led to a degrading of trust in the Democratic Party of immigrants and these mixed families trusting the Democratic Party. I've heard this over and over again. Democrats didn't do much for me either, which we could argue about whether or not that's true. In respect to will Trump be worse? Well, he's promising to.

Kai Wright: That's the explicit policy, is I'm going to do worse than Biden and Obama did.

Jasmine Garsd: Yes, and I also think once again, we go to the message also is partly, the effectiveness is not always as important as the messaging. I think the messaging itself contains a violence.

Kai Wright: I'm Kai Wright, and I'm talking with immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd. She covers migration for NPR. It's quite likely that Haitian immigrants will be among the first groups targeted for removal by the new administration. Just ahead, we'll be joined by someone who's working within that community to prepare for the coming onslaught. Stay with us and we can take more of your calls and questions for Jasmine about what this mass deportation is going to look like. You can call or text with your questions more just ahead.

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Katerina Barton: Hey, it's Katerina Barton from the show team at Notes for America with Kai Wright. Something happens to me when I listen to this show. No matter the topic or the guest, I can always think of someone I want to tell about what I just heard, and I do. If you're thinking about who in your life would enjoy this episode or another episode you've heard, please share it with them now. The folks in your life trust your good taste, and we would appreciate you spreading the word. If you really want to go above and beyond, please leave us a review. It helps more people, the ones you know and the ones you don't find the show. I'll let you get back to listening now. Thanks.

Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. We're talking about the incoming Trump administration's signature policy proposal, a mass deportation operation targeting millions of migrants living in the US without authorization. I've been talking with immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd, who covers migration for NPR. Jasmine, before I bring in our next guest, some advocates are calling on the Biden administration to do things like close open deportation cases before the Trump administration comes in to slow down this pending mass deportation. What, if anything, could the Biden administration do and what have they said about it?

Jasmine Garsd: Sure. I mean, there are a couple of things, like you said, just now. There's also the expediting work permits. Look, at the end of the day, Congress is what can do the most meaningful immigration reforms but as we know, that's almost become a moot point. Expediting work permits, that's been a huge one. Listen, one of the issues with the wave of migration that has come into places like New York and Chicago is a lack of work permits, people who want to work, coupled with a labor shortage and no work authorization. Business owners and business leaders on both sides have asked the Biden administration, please expedite that.

The other one is right now we have an extremely closed border. I think it's so interesting that we've been hearing during this electoral cycle Republicans say we're going to close the border. In reality, this summer, President Biden effectively closed the border to asylum seekers. It's a policy that is actually quite similar to Trump era policies. There's been questions about whether that could be a little bit laxer. Whether or not it'll happen, at the end of the day the reality is the Democratic Party has moved more conservative, center right on immigration issues.

There's been plenty of voices critiquing that as a policy. I've also heard a lot of advocates say, if you have on the one hand a Trump administration and then you have a Democratic Party that has moved further center right, who protects mixed immigration status families? Who protects immigrants in that political landscape? That's a question to really look into.

Kai Wright: We're joined now by Ronnie James. Ronnie is the Director of National Community Engagement for an organization called the UndocuBlack Network, which works with groups around the country supporting Black migrants who are either currently or formerly undocumented. Ronnie, welcome to Notes from America.

Ronnie James: Hey, all there. Thank you all for having me.

Kai Wright: Ronnie, can we just start by meeting you a little bit, you know firsthand about navigating our immigration system? Can you tell us about how you first came to the US?

Ronnie James: Yes. My family came in the way that most immigrants come. We flew, and we've been here ever since. I've been in the US for about 18 years now, and of those it's been a bit of a rollercoaster navigating some of the issues with DACA. It's been in and out of court.

Kai Wright: DACA is the program that has provided some relief from removal for children who were brought to the US, people who were brought to the US as children. The Trump administration's immigration thinkers deeply and profoundly object to that policy, and they've talked about repealing that special status. Are you concerned personally about that, Ronnie?

Ronnie James: I am concerned. We've already experienced the Trump administration and DACA's been in and out of court for the last eight years. He's exacerbated the time that DACA has been in court, and he's rescinded the program. Right now, it is a bit of waiting and seeing what is rhetoric and what is policy? We've already seen action taken by the Trump administration to institute policies that don't work for immigrants.

Kai Wright: How'd you get involved with UndocuBlack? What drew you to the organization?

Ronnie James: I got involved in organizing because it was my only other option. There are a lot of roadblocks in place for immigrants depending on your status. Even with DACA having work authorization, there's still barriers. That means that I can't get certain jobs. The dream was always to be a pilot, and I can't become a pilot. It's the pivot point.

Kai Wright: You are not allowed to get a pilot's license.

Ronnie James: Yes, I'm federally not allowed to fly planes.

Kai Wright: I'm not sure I understand the logic, but there it is. Sorry, I cut you off. You were saying that was always your dream, but you can't do it.

Ronnie James: I agree with you. It doesn't make sense to me. Skilled individuals or people with a passion unable to put it into action. It's rampant in our immigration system. It hearkens to what you were saying earlier about, or I think Jasmine may have been saying this earlier, in the early 2000s having a political climate around immigration that was more inspiring. Now we're seeing that immigrants are, for lack of a better term, being thrown under the bus.

Kai Wright: Right. One of the communities that many have said we anticipate to be targeted early on are Haitian migrants, in part because Haiti will receive migrants. That one of the things that a mass deportation operation will depend upon is countries that are willing to allow us to send planes of people there. Haiti has been a place that has been more welcoming than others. What are you hearing in Haitian communities you work with? Is there a sense of alarm or just what is the conversation you're hearing?

Ronnie James: Oh, there is that sense of alarm. Again, we've seen the Trump administration in action already, and right now there are over 7,000 Haitian migrants in towns along the border waiting for the opportunity to migrate in. Overall, we expect that the Black immigrant community is going to experiencing some of the brunt of the incoming policies. The Black Alliance for Just Immigration did a study where they found that there's 7.2% of the US population is Black, excuse me, the non-citizen population, but about one in five of those folks are facing deportation proceedings and it doesn't make sense. The numbers don't add up. Black immigrants are the minority in the immigration population, yet they are more pronounced in criminal deportation proceedings.

Kai Wright: One of the low moments of not just this presidential candidate campaign, but I think in our public conversation period was Donald Trump and J.D. Vance parroting this horrible slur that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio had been eating their neighbor's pets. What was it like to listen to the country debate as if it was a perfectly acceptable thing to discuss?

Ronnie James: I'm still dumbfounded. Like it's ridiculous that is being entertained as a notion on the political stage, and is also thinking about the impacts that statements like this have on immigrant communities. Immigrants who are already fleeing from war torn countries or fleeing abuse coming into the United States only to experience those levels of abuse and anti-Blackness. It's a catch 22 where folks are fleeing some of the issues that they're inheriting now in the United States.

Kai Wright: Jasmine, you've reported on that particular slur and I believe you reported that it's not actually new, that this is something that often has been said in the past. Do you want to add some context to what we were listening to?

Jasmine Garsd: Yes, absolutely. I mean this is such a storied slur to talk about immigrants and food and immigrants. It's not just about food, right? What he said was very horrific and we've heard this before. There's always this fear of immigrants relating to food. He also used the term of cannibalism a lot. He often spoke of Hannibal Lecter, and I think the messaging was one of the symbolism of people who are coming into the heartland to consume you and consume what you love. We also heard the specifics of pet eating has often been lobbed against Asian immigrants. It wasn't necessarily something new but that doesn't take away from horrific the slurs were.

Kai Wright: I want to ask. Here's a question that we have, a text message we got from a listener that is really straightforward. I would just love to hear you both respond to this simple question. What makes you believe undocumented immigrants, they used a slur I'm not going to repeat, have a right to stay here? They obviously cannot get jobs being undocumented. We not only provide monetarily for them, them, we also burden our health care system, which is already broken. I think this is a perspective that undocumented immigrants are an unnecessary burden that we cannot suffer. That even when we're not talking about eating dogs and cats, that even that is a mainstream question in our politics. I would just love to put that to both of you. Jasmine, how do you respond to that?

Jasmine Garsd: Well, first of all, I'm a journalist and so my job is not so much to give my opinion as it is to report on the facts and on what people are going through. I can answer this question in a couple of parts. First of all, economists, you'd be hard pressed to find an economist who will tell you that immigrants are not good for the economy. Economists pretty unanimously agree immigration is good for economies. Immigrants come into countries and they spend, they consume things, they buy phones, they rent homes, they buy food, they pay taxes.

This isn't just, I think there's often this thing of painting immigrants as like, for lack of a better word, parasitic, coming in and consuming of a nation when in reality it's pretty unanimous that immigrants boost economic growth. Secondly, I've spent the week talking to immigrants who have been here. Gosh, I spoke to one man who's been here for 40 years undocumented, and he has children who went to college, a grandchild, he owns a business which has been there for nearly 20 years. I think this idea of the immigrant who comes here and does not integrate and does not mix in and does not add economic value, this is not my opinion, this is economic fact. It's not true. Yes, that's the difference between opinions and facts.

Kai Wright: Ronnie, what about you? How do you respond when you hear that sentiment that undocumented immigrants are a burden and we can't afford it?

Ronnie James: Just plainly that's just not true. Immigrants, as Jasmine shared, immigrants take care of themselves. Immigrants are self-starting. Immigrants are enterprising. Even without the ability to-- even without work authorization, folks engage in the gig economy and are able to sustain themselves as best as they can. There's also historical precedent for the fact that it's just the appropriate thing to do and we've done it as Americans in the past. It's always been the right thing to do and the thing that has worked for the United States. It's simply that.

It's very easy to entertain some of the hateful rhetoric but by design, when our communities come together and we build, we are stronger together and we are able to have a more formidable defense and strategy to undo institutional oppression.

Kai Wright: I'm curious about in our closing moments here, Ronnie, as this mass deportation is coming, what it means for people who don't want to see it happen. I think of people like myself. I live in a city that is majority Mexican American with a sizable number of undocumented residents. There are very loud voices in our county political leadership who objected to the idea of providing emergency housing for migrants that were arriving in the New York area recently. For someone like me who finds this rhetoric and these policies abhorrent, what is going to be asked of us? What would you say we need to do? How do we need to be prepared to face the coming months?

Ronnie James: I would say that we need to organize. I know it's beating the horse dead, but organizing historically has been what has driven change and protected communities from unjust policies. We've seen that going as far back as abolitionist movements to deliver the abolishment of slavery. We see that during civil rights and we see that most recently during the Black Lives Matter protest where we saw community members coming together, in particular white Americans putting themselves on the line in defense of Black Americans right to protest.

The images of white folks in front of the police protecting Black folks is one of the things that drive people to action. For undocumented people in particular, it's a bit harder for us to show up in these spaces because showing up could be apprehended and being deported. Folks who are citizens, you can dip into your resources. We have financial resources that can be used to help support campaigns. It can also be dipping into the skills and talents that you have. If you are a legal expert, you can offer legal counsel to immigrants.

Kai Wright: We'll have to leave the list there but the point is be ready to show up. Ronnie James is Community Engagement Director for the UndocuBlack Network, which supports Black immigrants around the country who are either currently or formally undocumented. Jasmine Garsd is an immigration correspondent for NPR. Thanks to you both. Before we go, a word about this show. At the end of the year, WNYC will cease production of Notes from America. Our last episode will be broadcast on Sunday, December 29th. The show began as a reporting project covering the 2016 presidential election, and it does feel a bit disorienting to wrap it up with this election.

Over the coming final weeks of this work, we're going to continue to bring you new conversations to help process this moment in our political culture, and just where we stand on the effort to become a multiracial democracy and a truly joyful plural society. As we wrap up, we welcome your closing thoughts. Your own closing thoughts, especially those of you who have been listening for a long time. I know there are many of you who have actually been with us all along, so send us whatever's on your mind. Either leave us a message at 844-745-8255 or email us a voice note at notes@wmnyc.org I look forward to hearing from you.

We just thank you so much for all the participation that you have had in this show. You can always go to notesfromamerica.org. That's where you can revisit some of your favorite conversations or press play on any one you may have missed. For now, Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Siona Peterous. Our theme music and sound design is by Jared Paul. Matthew Mirando was at the boards for the live show and additional mixing this week by Mike Kutchman. Our team also includes Katarina Barton, Regina de Heer, Suzanne Gaber, and Lindsey Foster-Thomas, who is our executive producer. You can find us on Instagram at Notes with Kai and follow us wherever you get your podcast for now, and forever. I'm Kai Wright. You can find me on Instagram @kai_wright. Thanks for spending time with us.

 

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