Immigrants’ advocates prepare for Trump’s second term

Immigration advocates say they’re ready this time for Donald Trump and his efforts for mass deportations.
Organizations expect a surge in calls for help after the president-elect returns to the White House on Jan. 20 but say they’re better prepared than in 2016 when Trump began his first term.
The California Immigrant Policy Center said it would do everything possible to protect communities.
“We will inform our audiences, organize our communities, and call on our elected representatives at every level of government to stand with us in opposing Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant agenda,” Masih Fouladi, the center’s executive director, said in a statement on its website.
At a news conference Thursday outside Los Angeles City Hall, Fouladi said the California Immigrant Policy Center knows what to expect from Trump during his second term: efforts for mass deportations.
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“We have been here before,” Fouladi said in an NBC News Los Angeles story.
The news conference also included representatives of organizations such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, whose executive director, Angelica Salas, promised to fight discriminatory policies.
Salas said Trump lied to voters about immigrants.
“We are mothers and fathers. We’re beautiful people,” she said. “We’re hard-working. We have visions. We’re rooted in this country.”
During Trump’s first term, California fought his deportation efforts by passing sanctuary laws to limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration agents.
After Tuesday’s election, California Attorney General Rob Bonta promised to continue to defend the state’s values on issues such as immigration.
“We know to take Trump at his word when he says he’ll roll back environmental protections, go after our immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities, attack our civil rights, and restrict access to essential reproductive care,” Bonta said during a news conference Thursday.
“If Trump comes after your freedoms, I’ll be there,” he said.
Bonta told the Guardian that California defeated Trump’s effort during his first term to block green cards for immigrants with access to food stamps and other benefits. The state also sued to stop Trump’s attempt to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children. 
The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 in 2020 to prevent the dismantling of DACA.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four liberal justices: Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 
Today, the court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch. Liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Joe Biden, succeeded Breyer.
Bonta said he and attorneys general from other states are ready to coordinate lawsuits against the Trump administration.
But when his second term begins, Trump can appoint lower court judges who agree with his immigration policies.
Currently, 47 federal judicial seats are vacant, according to Law 360. Appointments are confirmed by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority in January.
The American Civil Liberties Union has warned about Project 2025 and its blueprint for federal policies in areas such as immigration. Trump has said he has no connection with Project 2025, but CNN reported at least 140 former Trump staffers worked on the conservative agenda.
Current U.S. policy says immigration agents should avoid arresting suspects in protected areas such as churches, schools, and hospitals. Project 2025 calls for using those spaces as part of an anti-immigrant agenda that includes using state and local police to help carry out deportations, according to the ACLU. The organization says that would force undocumented immigrants into dilemmas such as choosing between getting hospital care or staying with their family in America.
Efforts for a denaturalization project will be expanded in 2025, according to senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s post on X, formerly Twitter.
“Yes. We started a new denaturalization project under Trump,” Miller wrote. “In 2025, expect it to be turbocharged.”
The tweet led to posts from people who disagreed or agreed with Miller.
One person accused Miller of wanting to deport legal immigrants and citizens as well as undocumented immigrants. Others called the effort evil.
In other posts, people agreed with deporting undocumented immigrants. One person suggested replacing 87,000 Internal Revenue Service agents with an equal number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Project 2025 calls for denaturalization in civil and criminal cases for immigrants who “obtained citizenship through fraud or other illicit means.” It calls for resuming denaturalization efforts that started during Trump’s first term.
The Denaturalization Section in the U.S. Justice Department was designed to catch “terrorists, war criminals, sex offenders and other fraudsters who illegally obtained naturalization,” Joseph H. Hunt, who led the Justice Department’s civil division, said in a 2020 statement.
Critics at the time warned the effort indicated naturalized citizens have fewer rights than those born in the U.S., the New York Times reported.
The denaturalization investigations often were based on minor discrepancies in paperwork or other technicalities, according to Bailer Alert, a news website.
Kerri Talbot, executive director of the Immigration Hub, condemned the Trump administration’s plans in a statement on the nonprofit’s website.
“The denaturalization campaign that began under Trump, and which close adviser Stephen Miller now promises to ‘turbocharge,’ is an attack on the fundamental principles of fairness, stability, and equal rights that citizenship represents,” Talbot said. “Such policies are rooted in fear and exclusion, not in the principles of justice and equality that should guide our nation.”
Dave Mason covers East County for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached [email protected] or 805-437-0232.