The main organizations that advocate for the rights of Latinos have joined their voices to confront Donald Trump’s new attack against migrants, the so-called Operation Aurora, which raises his battle against immigration to another level. “He has simply declared war on the Latino community,” said María Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino. “He is a threat to all those Trump considers undesirable. It is a promise to use the military to destroy American families and detain or deport anyone he wants,” he warned.
The leaders of five of the most prominent Latino organizations agreed to raise alerts to the maximum in the face of the latest electoral promise of the Republican presidential candidate, which, they claim, would imply the deportation not only of undocumented immigrants, but of many American citizens.
“Trump has embraced an extremist agenda, and that’s nothing new, but now he’s taking us to an unprecedented level by invoking a more than 200-year-old law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Trump’s plan is not just reverse progress, but rather erode the fundamental rights and protections of immigrants, legal residents and even naturalized citizens,” warns Sindy Benavides, president of the Latino Victory Project.
The aforementioned law is what the Republican intends to cling to to carry out the largest deportation in history, the epicenter of his speech at each electoral rally. The rule, used in times of war, contemplates the expulsion of enemies who invade the United States, from Trump’s perspective, immigrants. Since it was promulgated at the end of the 18th century, this rule has only been applied three times: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
On October 11, Trump promised to apply the law to carry out the deportation of immigrants, which he called Operation Aurora, in reference to the homonymous city in Colorado. In August, Aurora made headlines because the Republican claimed that it was occupied by members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, something that even the city’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, denied.
Trump has never specified what the mechanism would be to carry out mass deportation. At the forum held with undecided Latino voters on the Univision television network on Wednesday night, the White House hopeful avoided the issue and did not answer the question about it. In return, he once again demonized immigrants, whom he blames for all the country’s ills.
Despite this lack of definition, Latino rights advocates fear that detentions will occur based on physical appearance and skin color, which would even put millions of Latino citizens at risk of deportation.
“It talks about mass deportation, but does not give specific details. He says it will empower local officials. And we know what happens when people have not been trained for it. It will be chaos. It has already separated families before,” predicts Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS Action Fund.
The application of the controversial law would allow the expulsion of people without the need for a process and migrants who are beneficiaries of residence permits, such as dreamers – migrants who arrived as children – fear being subject to deportation.
“It doesn’t just refer to recent immigrants. He also wants to take away the legal status of those who have it, such as beneficiaries of DACA – the program for dreamers – and TPS – temporary protected status –, who have lived in the country for decades. When he was president he already tried to cancel these programs and he wants to do it again if he reaches the White House,” warned Vanessa Cárdenas, director of America’s Voice.
This organization announced yesterday a campaign in the key states of Nevada and Arizona in which they want to tell real stories “and we will encourage immigrants and all Americans to enter social networks and share their immigration story, because our stories made great “This country and our stories are powerful,” he said.
Latino organizations have mostly supported Kamala Harris and have dedicated themselves in recent months to campaigning for Hispanics to go out and vote. In these elections there are four million Latinos who have the right to vote for the first time. With 36.2 million citizens with the right to vote, Latinos can have the outcome of the elections in their hands. Their decision will be decisive in key states such as Nevada, where they represent 20% of the electorate, and Arizona, where they reach 25%.
Bullying victims
Héctor Sánchez Barba, president of Mi Familia Vota, complains about the consequences that the demonization of immigrants is having on the campaign. “We have seen people harassing our pollsters in a very offensive way. “We have drastically increased security in our own spaces,” he says of the nearly 30 offices they have throughout the country. “We just received a pollster who was beaten. I witnessed that type of behavior in Arizona. I was there yesterday, canvassing with my teams. I have seen it at universities in Nevada and it is directly related to the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Trump and the Republican Party,” he maintains.
Cárdenas, of America’s Voice, estimates that the Trump campaign has spent more than 500 million on anti-immigration events this year, which is 11 times more than what was spent in 2020. “It is not surprising that they threaten workers elections, because when they hear Trump’s repeated warnings that we are being invaded, they take it seriously. Now Trump wants to turn that conspiracy theory about the invasion into a real policy of mass deportation,” he says.
In the days until November 5, these groups will continue the work of informing and stimulating the Latino vote. In the supposed event that the Republican returns to occupy the White House, his intention is to begin legal action against the Republican’s policies, with which they could buy time to avoid deportations, although “it is not clear for how long we can intervene.” Murguía acknowledges. Before and after the elections, its objective is to inform Latinos of their rights and warn them of what can happen.
“I have heard in some media that there are Latino voters who believe that Trump is joking when he talks about mass deportations. That’s serious because this should be taken seriously. “It’s no joke,” he warns.