WASHINGTON — Inauguration Day is still more than two months away, yet Donald Trump’s vision for the country’s immigration system is already starting to manifest.
During his campaign, President-elect Trump called for mass deportations, and Gustavo Torres of CASA says those calls have put the country’s immigrant community on edge.
“People are very scared about losing their status, and the deportations,” he said. “People are ready to make sure they can respond.”
But as advocates try to put that response together, Trump’s allies are moving fast.
On Friday, a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a Biden administration program that gives undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens a streamlined path to citizenship.
Then on Sunday night, Trump announced on Truth Social that former ICE director Tom Homan would be his border czar, who says he’s committed to Trump’s plans.
During Trump’s first administration, Homan was one the leading champions for the administration’s family separation policy in 2018.
More than 5,500 children of immigrants were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border while the policy was enforced.
“We still have kids that we don’t know where they are because of this separation policy from the previous Trump administration,” Torres said.
Now as the new administration begins to take shape, Torres is calling the nation’s immigrants to not lose hope, because he plans to keep fighting for them.
Torres said, “It is going to be a very difficult four years that we are going to face, but we have been facing incredible challenges before, and we are still here."