MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 17: A person holds a sign that reads “Mass Deportation Now” on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party’s presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
As Donald Trump heads back to the White House with mass deportation on his agenda, immigrant rights groups in Michigan are warning that Michiganders will pay dearly for Trump’s vision for the country, at the grocery store, when seeking medical care and across all facets of life.
While there is much unknown about how Trump plans to deliver his campaign promise to begin “the largest deportation operation in American history”, individuals of varying citizen statuses across Michigan have been cast into fear for the safety of their children and loved ones.
“We have a lot of people who are terrified. Our phones are ringing off the hook,” Julie Powers, executive director of Immigration Law & Justice Michigan said.
As refugee programs and immigrant work permits are on Trump’s chopping block, it’s the unaccompanied migrant children navigating survival in the U.S. that Powers worries the most about should Trump’s administration prevent kids seeking asylum.
“These children, they don’t have a grown up…Perhaps their primary family member was involved with the drug cartel, or they were trafficked by a family member and returning to their country of origin would result in them most likely being killed or trafficked again,” Powers said. “These kiddos are integrating into our communities. Many of them have been adopted by American families, some of them have been adopted or are in a guardianship relationship with extended family members who may already be in the United States as citizens or who are in the process of obtaining citizenship. So we don’t know what’s going to happen to those kiddos.”
Trump’s plans to deport millions of immigrants will likely require coordination across multiple veins of the federal government with proposals from Trump’s cabinet appointees including workplace raids, detention camps, crackdowns on sanctuary cities, mobilizing local law enforcement agencies and using the U.S. military branches to implement various elements of his emerging plans.
There is “no price tag” on the safety of the American people, Trump has said, which he contends is threatened by the violence and lawlessness of undocumented immigrants. But the cost estimate for Trump’s plan to implement mass deportation of immigrants, who despite Trump’s assertions, commit far less crime than U.S.-born citizens, is expected to run up hundreds of billions of dollars.
Immigrants, including those who are not documented, contribute greatly to Michigan’s economy and their absence would be sorely missed, Powers said, noting that immigrants make up about 30% of Michigan’s physicians and surgeons, according to estimates from pro-immigration groups.
The health care system in Michigan is already strained as Baby Boomers are aging and the necessary additional care providers are not available. Undocumented immigrants play a huge role in health care with almost 280,000 undocumented workers participating in providing services as of 2018, largely in home health care roles, according to the New American Economy Research Fund.
“I think that a lot of people have forgotten that we are a country of immigrants, but more importantly, Michigan is a state of immigrants,” Powers said. “When mass deportation happens…how is your grandma going to get care in the nursing home? She’s not… Who is going to do the groundbreaking research that has advanced cancer treatments at the University of Michigan and other research institutions? I think that a lot of people have been misled and just don’t seem to understand how economics work.”
About 1.3% of Michigan’s population consists of undocumented immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. With about 130,000 undocumented immigrants, about a fifth of Michigan’s immigrant population is undocumented.
Michigan’s more than $100 billion agricultural industry would likely suffer under mass deportation, Christine Sauvé, Community Engagement and Communications Coordinator for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, or MIRC, said.
Agriculture is a top industry in Michigan and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture about half of hired crop farm workers don’t have a legal immigration status.
The removal of undocumented immigrants from Michigan’s workforce would have a major impact on the ability for Michiganders to get their food in a safe and timely manner at reasonable prices, Sauvé said. A lot of migrant workers without an immigration status have been in the U.S. for generations, with years of experience supporting Michigan’s economic growth.
“Those folks are also consumers in the community. They’re integrated into the local economy, in addition to the role they play in planting, picking and preparing the foods that we eat,” Sauvé said. “If those folks are removed from the labor system, it might be difficult to replace those positions. Employers would have to probably offer higher wages to entice people and that cost would likely be passed on to the consumer. And if we can’t meet our food system needs, and we might be looking at importing food…all of that could potentially lead to higher prices in the grocery store.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump villainized countries like Mexico, Germany and China for contributing to stunted economic growth in Michigan, proposing high tariffs on foreign goods with the goal of encouraging an American-made economy. However, many economists say extreme tariffs will make prices at grocery stores skyrocket for U.S. consumers as well as prices on cars and other goods.
When countries need a boost, they welcome immigrants and Michigan, which has faced such significant population stagnation it lost a vote in the electoral college in 2021, needs a boost, Bill O’Brien, executive director of Strangers No Longer said.
O’Brien’s group Strangers No Longer was formed amongst Catholic stakeholders in Michigan following Trump’s 2017 ban on travel from Muslim countries and at the advice of Pope Francis’ calls to welcome immigrant neighbors no matter religion.
And while O’Brien said Trump and his allies have created a smear campaign directed at all immigrants under the veil of Christianity, Michiganders operate differently, no matter the rhetoric, and average people act with hospitality and generosity towards their neighbors.
“You talk to the ordinary person in the street, they would welcome immigrants… when new families come in and they’re going to school and they’re trying to learn English, their experience of those families has been very positive,” O’Brien said. “People’s experience of new families, their kids go to school, they’re in catechism with them…They experience one thing, but they’re told they need to be afraid of another thing.”
Immigrants, documented and undocumented alike, are preparing to weather another presidency under Donald Trump where their safety to move freely and exist within Michigan is not guaranteed, Edna Berlanga, 54, said last month during a rally outside the Michigan Capitol to restore driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.
Strangers No Longer, along with the Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) support the restoration of allowing undocumented Michiganders to have driver’s licenses and state IDs that was removed in 2008.
For Berlanga, she told Michigan Advance that for years she had been able to drive around the state, with auto insurance, with confidence, getting to see her grandchildren and be with family on holidays. Now, without a valid license, auto insurance is much more costly to her and she worries about driving too far and running into a problem with law enforcement.
Limiting immigrants’ ability to drive and work and access safe housing places them in a position to be taken advantage of by bad actors, O’Brien said.
Normally local authorities don’t partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, Sauvé said, and for good reason. If local law enforcement wants to have the trust of the community to encourage community members to come forward with information about a crime or to cooperate in an investigation, they can’t be responsible for detaining people for ICE.
However, local law enforcement agencies around the country are preparing to partner with Trump on mass deportation efforts and allow ICE to focus on “sanctuary cities” and areas with less local partnerships ICE.
Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, a vocal supporter of Trump and his deportation policies, began having his department document its interactions with undocumented immigrants “regardless of the nature of the contact” in September.
In arenas like law enforcement and health care, Sauvé said MIRC advises communities to not ask about immigration status in order to eliminate bias and protect the data of immigrant residents who may need help from police or hospitals.
In anticipation of a flurry of “death by a thousand cuts’ policies enacted by Trump for immigration, as well as sweeping reforms, Sauvé is advising noncitizens to reach out to advocacy agencies to ensure they’re in the best position to stay safe.
MIRC is advising noncitizens to
- Renew Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, if status expires with 150 days
- Get passports for all members of mixed immigration status households in case members get separated
- Asylum seekers should apply for work permits or renew existing permits, as well as apply for additional immigration status should asylum statuses be cut
- Legal Permanent Residents (LPR) should apply for citizenship immediately
Fear is rampant through immigrant communities in Michigan right now and hopefully some of Trump’s campaign trail promises on deportation are hot air, Powers said, but when someone tells you their plan, it’s best to believe them.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric in the last decade has degraded community support for immigrant neighbors, but even in the dark and difficult times, people come together to try and do good in the world, Powers said, noting that former clients of Immigration Law & Justice Michigan who achieved citizenship have been calling in hoping to help the organization serve Michiganders.
‘We are all guided by our respective faith and we have a moral compass… we will do our best to help folks make good decisions by giving them all of the information that we have,” Powers said. “But I tell you what, they come for those kids, they’re going to have to come through me.”