Washington, D.C. — A new report from the Center for American Progress explains how President Trump’s cruel immigration actions harm public safety and national security and threaten Americans’ economic well-being while providing no actual solutions to fix the broken U.S. immigration system.
The report highlights five ways the Trump administration is prioritizing spectacle above security:
- The Trump administration’s indiscriminate mass deportation agenda threatens public safety and rips apart families and communities: The Trump administration rejects a commonsense prioritization of enforcement resources, directing the time and resources of law enforcement away from public safety threats to instead carry out “collateral arrests” of hardworking people who pose no danger to American communities.
- The Trump administration’s actions force federal law enforcement to prioritize immigration enforcement over combating serious crimes: Directing federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to prioritize nonviolent immigration offenses comes at the expense of their intended missions and makes the country less safe because these agencies are less able to focus on holding people accountable for serious violence and the trafficking of guns and drugs into U.S. communities.
- The Trump administration is threatening public safety by targeting states and cities, blocking funding for law enforcement and crime victims, and diverting police from their mission: The administration’s overreach into local priorities regarding public safety and immigration enforcement will intimidate state and local government officials, threatens harm to Americans by withholding vital community resources, and is ineffective at improving public safety. Sanctuary policies have been lawfully adopted by state and local governments and do not prevent enforcement of criminal laws.
- Militarizing immigration enforcement and declaring an “invasion” at the border jeopardizes national security: Tasking the military with immigration enforcement undermines the United States’ ability to counter legitimate threats to U.S. national security from malign actors, as these deployments harm readiness and take troops away from critical training and exercises designed to protect America’s interests around the world. Border security is not a military mission, and the Department of Defense should continue to remain in a supporting role to the Department of Homeland Security.
- Mass deportation and the suspension of legal immigration pathways will hurt Americans’ economic security: Deporting all undocumented immigrants would result in a massive loss of state, local, and federal tax revenue, undermining essential services that Americans depend on such as funding for teacher salaries, road maintenance, and bridge repairs. The intended large-scale deportation of undocumented workers could also lead to a more than 10 percent increase in food prices over the next four years.
“Instead of creating a modern, orderly, humane, and workable immigration system that would strengthen the nation and grow the economy for all Americans, the report argues, the Trump administration is threatening American states and cities,” said Debu Gandhi, senior director for Immigration Policy at CAP and co-author of the report. “Rather, the Trump administration should be working with Congress to adopt bipartisan solutions to meaningfully strengthen border security and public safety, modernize the immigration system and clear backlogs facing millions of immigrants waiting in line, better protect the most vulnerable immigrants seeking safety from persecution and violence, and create orderly, lawful migration pathways to the United States.”
Read the report: “Trump’s Rash Immigration Actions Place Cruelty and Spectacle Above Security” by Debu Gandhi, Ben Greenho, and Nick Wilson
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Julia Cusick at [email protected].