Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Help shape the future of KAZU: Take the Audience Survey (Note: Survey will end on Monday)

Trump's promised 'mass deportations' spotlight a dizzying U.S. immigration system

Residents gather at the City Plaza in downtown Watsonville, CA.
Scott Cohn
/
KAZU News
Promised immigration crackdowns under the incoming Trump administration could have a profound impact on communities like Watsonville.

Lea este artículo en español aquí.

With one week until Inauguration Day, the Central Coast and the nation are bracing for President-elect Donald Trump’s signature campaign promise: the largest mass deportation in United States history. Whether he can pull it off—and the extent to which it will change life in the immigrant community and beyond—will depend largely on everyone’s ability to navigate the enormously complex U.S. immigration system.

Already, immigrants, employers, school districts and the legal community are making calculations about what might change, and how they need to position themselves.

“I think it’s terrifying in a lot of different ways,” said Karla Valadez, 27, who was brought to the U.S. undocumented when she was 4 years old. Watsonville is the only home she has ever known.

“I’ve built a life here,” she said.

Valadez, a case worker at the Santa Cruz County Community Action Board's rental assistance program and a journalism student at Cal State Monterey Bay, was recently able to renew her immigration status under DACA, the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That theoretically means she can remain in the U.S. for another two years. But she has no idea how that will work in the Trump administration, which is part of what she said terrifies her.

“Just thinking that that could be taken away and being placed somewhere that I have no idea about,” she said.

Karla Valadez is a case worker at the Santa Cruz County Community Action Board's rental assistance program.
Scott Cohn
/
KAZU News
Karla Valadez, a case worker at the Santa Cruz County Community Action Board's rental assistance program, was brought to the U.S. undocumented when she was 4 years old. She recently was able to renew her immigration status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which President-elect Trump targeted in his first term.

Trump, who sought to eliminate the DACA program in his first term, has more recently said he wants to find a way to protect so-called “Dreamers” like Valadez. But it is unclear what he meant.

The Migration Policy Institute estimated that there were 537,000 DACA recipients as of December. Neither the President-elect nor members of his team have said where they stand on conditions for allowing Dreamers to renew their status under the program.

Some of Valadez’s relatives, who are also DACA recipients, are not up for renewal until after Trump takes office. Another relative who was brought here as a minor does not meet the age requirements for DACA, which says recipients must have arrived in the U.S. before their 16th birthday.

“So they're fully undocumented,” she said. “It’s terrifying to think that I can come home and someone in my family could be deported because of what's going on.”

Kate Hinnenkamp, Director of the Santa Cruz County Immigration Project, said that Valadez’s situation—and the anxiety that goes with it—are typical in the immigrant community, since most families are of mixed status.

“There are dozens, probably hundreds of different specific immigration statuses that people have,” she said.

Kate Hinnenkamp is Director of the Santa Cruz County Immigration Project.
Scott Cohn
/
KAZU News
Kate Hinnenkamp is Director of the Santa Cruz County Immigration Project.

As a result, most immigrants are making calculations based not just on their own situations, but also those of their loved ones. Hollister-based immigration attorney Lizett Rodriguez Peña said that has led to widespread fear that threatens to paralyze the immigrant community and beyond.

“Fear in general has led people to some even saying that they might not even go out, that they might just go to work and come back home, which, obviously, that's not the lifestyle that we want our community to live,” she said.

Rodriguez Peña is urging people to continue living their lives—going to work and school and getting health care, for example—but also to understand their rights.

“Regardless of your immigration status, the Constitution still applies to you,” she said. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which includes the right to remain silent, and the Sixth Amendment, which includes the right to due process and a speedy trial, she said.

Rodriguez Peña said she is fielding questions from immigrants, employers, health care providers, school districts and more as Inauguration Day approaches.

But even for the experts, the U.S. immigration system can be dizzying—especially when it comes to mixed status families.

“The most common scenario we see is where the parents are undocumented and the children are U.S. citizens,” Hinnenkamp said.

Once children reach adulthood, they can petition for their parents to become citizens, but that is not as simple as it may seem.

“The parents didn’t have a lawful entry, and so in order for the child to petition the parents, the parents have to leave the country,” Hinnenkamp said. “And the moment they leave the country, they are required to stay out of the country for 10 years.”

Other supposed paths to citizenship are even more complicated, like a U.S. citizen petitioning for a non-citizen sibling to be admitted.

“If I petition my sibling today to come from Mexico, it will be at least 30 years before that petition will be approved,” Hinnenkamp said.

If I petition my sibling today to come from Mexico, it will be at least 30 years before that petition will be approved
Kate Hinnenkamp

Most other immigration statuses offer no path to citizenship—or a long and narrow one at best.

“Sometimes you'll hear people say, why don't people get in line? Why don’t they apply the right way? For the vast majority of people, there’s no line to get in,” Hinnenkamp said.

The major path to citizenship—lawful permanent residency—is relatively rare. Fewer than 1 million Green Cards are issued each year, and the incoming Trump administration is unlikely to expand that.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services Division website lists dozens of classes of visas to allow non-citizens to work, study or travel in the United States. Immigration policy experts widely expect the new administration to attempt to restrict visas as it did in Trump’s first term.

Already, there has been a high-profile debate among Trump supporters about H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, which the President-elect has said he now supports. Less clear is his stance on other types of visas for workers in fields like agriculture, hospitality and construction. And, he has been hostile in the past when it comes to immigrants with so-called Temporary Protected Status, granted to those fleeing conflict zones like El Salvador, Haiti, and Ukraine.

DACA recipient Karla Valadez noted that even if the Trump administration allows her program to continue, it only gives her two years of authorization at a time.

“I can't really look past two years, because that's when my DACA expires,” she said. “So it's hard for me to have big dreams that feel realistic.”

She also cannot leave the country, and she lives in constant fear of a misstep that could get her deported.

“I feel like we're on edge all the time because we want to make sure we're doing everything right and we're not causing any issues and we're not breaking any laws in any way, no matter how small.”

“We try to not worry about it, but it's always there,” she said. “It’s always there in the back of our minds in terms of that uncertainty of whether we’re going to be able to be here for the rest of our lives or not.”

Scott Cohn is a nationally recognized journalist who has been based on the Central Coast since 2014. His work for KAZU is a return to his reporting roots. Scott began his career as a reporter and host for Wisconsin Public Radio. Contact him at scohn@kazu.org.
Related Content