The message for the Republican National Convention – being held this week in Milwaukee – was supposed to be "unity."
Instead, we saw this absolutely chilling sight: thousands upon thousands of attendees waving posters saying "mass deportation now!" and chanting "send them back!"
We already knew that Trump was planning for a second term that involves mass deportations. His former top strategist Stephen Miller has said that he wants to roll 'red state armies' into blue states to conduct raids. His former acting ICE chief, Thomas Homan, recently said "Trump comes back in January, I'll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen."
But we think it's important that all Americans understand what mass deportations really mean. It's easy for people to say that they want more immigration enforcement.
But mass deportations would mean the deportation of immigrant parents, neighbors, coworkers, and community members. It means ripping children away from their parents. It means detention camps full of immigrants waiting to be removed. This would affect all undocumented people living in the US, even those who have lived here for decades. (Two-thirds of undocumented immigrants in the US have lived here for more than ten years.) Thomas Homan has repeatedly said that when it comes to deportations, "no one should be off the table." That includes DACA recipients and TPS holders – and who knows what they have in mind for mixed-status families.
The moral cost to the country would be unimaginable. It would also lead to economic disaster. The cost to deport 11 million people would come to more than $265 billion. The deportation of every 1 million immigrants would cause an estimated 88,000 American job losses. We would lose trillions in immigrant taxes, economic contributions, and payments into Social Security and Medicare.
Most Americans understand this. Polling finds that support for legalization and citizenship (especially for immigrant youth, at 81%) is much higher than support for deportation (47%). Two-thirds of Americans think that immigration is a "good thing."
But when we see an arena full of signs like we did last night, it's imperative that we make it clear to as many people as possible: a second Trump term means mass deportations. And mass deportations mean family separation and an enormous, unprecedented invasion into our communities and our way of life.
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