William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
Abstract
In a 2013 book entitled Those Damned Immigrants: America’s Hysteria Over Undocumented Immigration, I warned of a conservative political trend that I believed would lead to an all-out assault on undocumented immigrants. This trend occurred despite the fact that these immigrants are critical economic boons to our economy.
On his first day in office in 2025, President Trump made the book’s warnings prophetic. That day, President Trump issued a series of executive orders, including 10 focused on limiting entry into the United States and questioning many who previously entered the United States legally. These orders include, 1) enhanced deportation powers with increased capacity to expedite deportations; 2) a change to the treatment of asylum seekers which had the effect of slowing down the asylum application process; 3) an increased military role at the U.S.-Mexico border; 4) reinstatement of the remain in Mexico policy, which requires asylum seekers at the southern border to wait in Mexico for their hearings in a U.S. immigration court; 5) curtailment of humanitarian parole programs, which ended the CHNV (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans) humanitarian parole program and reduced the availability of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain countries; and 6) suspension of refugee admissions, which blurs the distinction between asylum seekers, other migration flows, and refugee resettlement, resulting in making the distinctions largely irrelevant.
As a result of these executive orders, as well as the President’s executive priorities, the United States is now witnessing a host of policies aimed at limiting immigration, the implementation of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and policies aimed at challenging the status of those who recently became citizens or are otherwise in this country legally. This is also a time when the demonization of immigrants is so rampant, political leaders do not worry a bit over negative reactions to their demagoguery. Indeed, we are in an era where there are virtually daily roundups of immigrants, as well as those who appear to look like an immigrant.
Instead of terrible xenophobic practices, such as mass deportation, being the plan of action, policymakers should end the call for such xenophobic and universally harmful practices, once and for all. Politicians must learn to understand that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are vital workers and indispensable parts of our economy. We should perhaps look back to what I proposed over a decade ago, and instead of calls for mass deportation, we should engage in honest, balanced efforts to address undocumented immigration and eventually pass comprehensive immigration reform. That reform can both secure our borders and develop means, such as a national guest worker program, where immigrants can continue to be vital components of our labor force with livable wages, as well as domestic labor and safety protections.
This abstract was taken from the author's introduction and the body of the article.