About Blocking Trump’s Deportation Command

On March 25th, Trump issued an order that he would end the legal status for over 500,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans – voiding their work permits and opening them to ICE led deportations while giving them 30 days to self-deport.1 

These immigrants entered the U.S. through a program called the CHNV program — a Biden period plan that allowed refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to be legally in the U.S. after they passed a background check and had a sponsor in the USA. Then on April 14th, a federal judge blocked Trump’s order from taking effect.2 This is a temporary respite as it’s expected that this matter will be handled in and by the court system. 

United We Dream, a social justice movement, put forth the following pronouncement:3 It hints well about the troubles that Trump’s anti-immigration plans can and do foment. 

 I, myself, don’t know by which program, several hundred Haitians came to Massachusetts, USA and wound up scattered across our state in towns such as Sturbridge, Clinton and Millbury, as well as in our three cities — Boston, Worcester and Springfield.  The fact is, though, that they are here and one will notice that many of them have, along with many other immigrants from elsewhere, assorted jobs in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical settings where, without them, there would exist a shortage of staff to easily carry out the basic routine work needing to be done (for example, in maintenance, daily and routine housekeeping, doctoring work, laundry, tasks with microscopes and disease control, blood drawing, nursing care, nursing assistant care, trash disposal, medical records keeping, meal and drink preparation, etc., during all three eight hour shifts).

The fact is that many organizations (not just the medically oriented ones) in my state rely on these newcomers from Haiti and other lands to adequately function — places like grocery stores, gas stations, tax preparation companies, farms and way, way more! Moreover, the large number of newcomers that we have for the most part work at steady full time (or more than full time) jobs, pay federal and state taxes, are stable members of our communities here in MA where they, also,  pay landlords rent or pay off mortgages to banks, buy groceries and generally keep the economy going strongly. (No, the large majority of them are not rapists, murderers, child traffickers and drug dealers as Trump attempts to claim, but are family oriented, hard working individuals who I’ve seen at work with my own eyes while recovering from a broken metacarpal area in my right foot in a rehabilitation facility last fall when there for several months.) 

So what kind of disruptive and dysfunctional, fresh, new nonsense is this latest Trump folly of this intended immigrant removal now attempted to be carried out? How dare he, then, try to mess up our businesses and our local societies that rely on these fairly new neighbors in various ways to improve the quality of life for us all. Yes, how dare he! (He needs to be stopped. So thank goodness that some judges thumb their noses at some of his more capricious, arbitrary and blundering dictates that make life difficult for both the immigrants and those of us born in the USA! He has no right to do so! Who the heck does he think that he is — a royal king lording over us all to do only whatsoever that he pleases?)

If he does want to be supportive on the states level (which seems unlikely based on many of his prior actions), all he needs to do is stop dictating to us all like an authoritarian mafioso boss. Instead, he needs to ask our governors, House Representatives, Senators, our already integrated migrants who came here either early-on or more recently, other local government workers and communities in general via polls or other means about what he can do to support rather than disrupt us while making life hard due to his personal vendettas against so much that we citizens don’t find wrong, such as interacting with our hard working refugees. It’s that easy!

¹ U.S. to revoke legal status of more than half a half-million migrants, urges them to self-deport 

² Federal court rulings have slowed down Trump’s deportation plans. What you need to know 
³ Ending Parole Status for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans is Destructive & Cruel

Sally Dugman writes from and lives in MA, USA. There, she is especially grateful for the fairly recent high quality, expert care that she received first from many immigrants and U.S. born citizens at the local hospital after breaking her foot and, then, at the rehabilitation center where she lived for more than two months while recovering from her injury.