Trump’s mass deportation proposal would not just “rip apart one in three Latino families” but also could “destabilize our economy,” Latino groups warn. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Latino organizers in battleground states warned former President Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportation could put an estimated one in three Latino families at risk of separation and “destabilize our economy.”
With less than a week before Election Day, Latino groups nationwide hosted a virtual call on Tuesday to rebuke Trump’s immigration policies as well as proposals outlined in Project 2025.
Recent data from the bipartisan political advocacy and research group Fwd.US projects that one in 12 total U.S. residents, and nearly one in three Latinos, are at risk of deportation and family separation under Trump’s proposals.
Leaders from swing states Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia said they are mobilizing voters by making them aware of the harm a second Trump presidency could bring to immigrant communities.
“Project 2025 would destabilize our neighborhoods, our communities and our entire fabric of what makes us a great society,” said Leo Murrieta, the state director of Make the Road Action Nevada. “It’s not just a threat to our immigrant communities. It’s a threat to our entire country.”
The Fwd.US analysis reports that nearly 28.2 million U.S. residents, including 19.5 million Latinos, live in mixed-status immigrant families.
The report found that in Nevada, California, Florida, Texas and New Jersey, more than 10% of the population live in a mixed status household of both documented and undocumented family members.
In Nevada the “combined number of undocumented individuals and their household members” was 410,000, about 13% of the population, according to the Fwd.US report.
In other battleground states represented on Tuesday’s call, there are 650,000, or 9%, in Arizona; 920,000, or 8%, in Georgia; and 470,000, or 4%, in Pennsylvania.
The details of how Trump would carry out mass deportation have been limited. Trump has vowed to deploy the National Guard to carry out a militaristic removal of unauthorized immigrants.
Gustavo Torres, the President for CASA in Action, which is organizing in Pennsylvania and Georgia, pointed to Trump’s ICE director’s recent comments during an interview on 60 minutes that “families can be deported together.”
Torres warned the administration would “separate families and deport entire families including U.S. citizens.”
The report found 5.1 million U.S. citizens under 18 lived with at least one undocumented family member.
About 8% of the children in Nevada live in households with an undocumented person.
Janet Murguia, president of UnidosUS Action Fund, said Trump’s mass deportation proposal would not just “rip apart one in three Latino families” but also could “destabilize our economy.”
“This is a huge number of individuals and families who are currently making important contributions to our country economically and socially,” Murguia said. “This is not just an immigration issue. It’s a threat to our economy, our values and our freedoms.”
The Fws.US report focused on demographics, and didn’t quantify economic impacts of mass deportation.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that mass deportation could reduce U.S. economic productivity and job growth by as much as 7.4% and 6.7%, respectively, below baseline projections of what would happen without mass deportation.
A ‘self-inflicted wound’
Trump and his supporters have a long history of making disparaging and racist remarks, not only about undocumented immigrants, but U.S. citizens.
During Sunday’s rally at Madison Square Garden New York, one of the speakers called the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico “an island of garbage.”
Trump, who called the rally a “love fest,” has yet to apologize.
Torres said that even if Trump did apologize, Puerto Rican voters in U.S. states “are never going to forget what he did and what he has been doing for many years.”
“This was the October surprise for the Latino community,” he said. “We are communicating that every day from now to Nov. 5.”.
In the largest electoral college prize of the seven presidential battleground states, Pennsylvania, more than 470,000 voters are Puerto Ricans.
On the campaign trail this cycle, Trump and his running mate U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance have pushed a steady stream of anti-immigrant rhetoric, not only in the course of calling for mass deportation but also unleashing baseless claims that immigrants have amplified the housing crisis and increased crime.
Both candidates have also spread lies about the Haitian immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio, and Venezuelan gang takeovers of parts of Aurora, Colorado.
And mass deportation has been a central plank of Trump’s platform.
“Immediately upon taking the oath of office I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” he said at a recent rally in Southern Nevada.
While the groups on Tuesday once again denounced the rhetoric, organizers emphasized the harm mass deportation would harm the entire country.
“Disrupting millions of Latino families and removing workers en masse would hit sectors from agriculture to health care,” Murguia said. “By removing millions of workers from key industries, Trump’s policy would disrupt supply chains and drive up the cost of goods, placing a heavier financial burden on American families already struggling with the high cost of living.”
Murguia said mass deportation would create a “self-inflicted wound to our economy.”
“That is what he is promising to do,” she added. We should take him at his word.”
Organizers in battleground states said they are working to turn out the Latino vote and ensure Harris wins next week. However, they also warned Democrats shouldn’t take those efforts lightly.
Murrieta said Democrats can’t take back power “on the backs of our communities and sit there and do nothing” and expects change within the first 100 days of Harris taking office.
“If we are able to take back these chambers and hold these lines and advance our agenda, it’s going to be up to Democrats and the Harris-Walz administration to take our votes and take our calls to action as their marching orders to put forward concrete permanent solutions for our families,” Murrieta said. “It’s no longer acceptable for those in power to give us lip service.”