Trump cited Whitewater during his campaign. After the police chief wrote a letter to Biden: We ask for your help in meeting the needs of new arrivals in Nicaragua. While some residents were put off by Trump’s rhetoric about the city being destroyed by immigrants, it resonated with the longtime Mexican immigrant residents we interviewed. They said they believe newcomers were unfairly given benefits they never received when they arrived illegally decades ago, and that many remain underserved today.
Among these residents is one of Rosa’s friends and neighbors, who asked to be identified by one of her last names, Valadez, because she is undocumented and fears deportation. Valadez, a single mother who cleans houses and buildings for a living, also earns a second job by helping immigrants without cars commute to work and run errands. But it’s a risky side job for her, as she’s frequently stopped by police for driving without a license, fined and fined thousands of dollars.
One day two summers ago, one of her sons found a small wallet at a village festival. Inside, they found a Wisconsin driver’s license, a work permit issued to a Nicaraguan woman and $300 in cash. Valadez felt bitter after seeing the contents. She asked her son to hand over his wallet to police, but he kept $300 in it. “I’ve been here 21 years,” she said. “I have five children who are American citizens. And I can’t get a work permit or a driver’s license.”
When she told Rosa the story one afternoon this spring, her friend nodded emphatically in approval. Like Valadez, Rosa was unable to vote. But two of Rosa’s American-born children could and they voted for Trump. One of Rosa’s sons even drives a car with a bumper sticker that says “Let’s Go Brandon,” a popular anti-Biden slogan.
Rosa said she was glad her children voted for Trump. She is not overly concerned about deportation, but asked to be identified by only her first name to reduce risk. She believes Trump wants to deport criminals, not people like her who crossed the border undetected in the 1990s but didn’t break the law. “They know who behaves well and who doesn’t,” she said.
In the months leading up to the presidential election, numerous polls explored the frustration felt by Rosa and her family. The poll found that many voters viewed immigration as one of the most pressing challenges facing the country and were disappointed with the Biden administration’s record.
Biden took office in 2021 promising a more humane approach to immigration after four years of more restrictive policies under Trump’s first administration. but record number of immigrants Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border are beginning to overwhelm the system. The Biden administration has avoided talking about the border situation as a crisis, as did Trump and Republicans, but outspoken critics such as Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have issued a message that the situation at the border is out of control while busing thousands of people. amplified. Immigration to large cities across the country controlled by Democrats. In Whitewater, hundreds of Nicaraguans arrived on their own to fill jobs at local factories, many of them driving to work without licenses, putting a strain on a small local police department with only one Spanish-speaking officer.
The Biden administration has kept Trump’s deportation policy in place for three years, while also creating a temporary parole program and an app that allows asylum seekers to make appointments to cross the border. The result allowed hundreds of thousands more immigrants to enter the country and apply for work permits, but the effort did little to quell criticism of the administration on the left and right. Meanwhile, the movement to provide benefits to undocumented workers already in the country is less well-known, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Immigration Policy Institute.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Conchita Cruz, co-founder and co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which serves a network of about 1 million asylum seekers nationwide, said Biden might not be able to do this because of court challenges or backlogs. He said there was none. It fulfills many of his promises to make it easier for immigrants who have been in the country for years to legalize their status.
“Policies to help immigrants haven’t always been implemented,” she said.
Cruz said the administration has extended work authorization periods for some employment categories, but the backlog has hindered quick processing of those extensions. As of September, about 1.2 million work authorization applications were pending, many of them for more than six months, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. USCIS says it has taken steps to reduce the backlog while processing a record number of applications.
Biden’s attempts to push broad immigration reform through Congress, including a proposal his administration sent out on his first day in office, have gone nowhere. Earlier this year, Trump pressured Republicans to repeal bipartisan legislation that would strengthen border security in an effort to block Biden’s political victory before the election.
Camila Chavez, executive director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation in Bakersfield, California, said Democrats have failed to fight misinformation and turn out Latino voters. She recalled meeting a young Latino Trump supporter while knocking on voters’ doors with the foundation’s sister political action organization. The woman said she was concerned that newly arrived immigrants could bring crime and cartel activity and potentially pose a threat to the safety of her family.
“It’s our responsibility as an organization to make sure we’re part of the community, educate people about how government works, and make sure we don’t vote against our own interests. This is what is happening now.” said Chávez, daughter of renowned agricultural worker advocate Dolores Huerta and niece of Cesar Chávez.
President Trump has made it clear that he intends to follow through on his deportation promise, but it remains unclear how exactly he will do so and who will be most affected. The last time Trump was elected, he was quick to issue a “no” executive order.Class or Category” Illegal immigrants may be exempt from crackdowns. Tom Horman, whom Trump nominated as his “border czar,” said in a recent interview: ‘Fox & Friends’ interview Immigrants deemed to be a threat to public safety or national security will be a priority under the new administration. But he said immigrants with outstanding deportation orders could also be targeted and there would be crackdowns on businesses with large numbers of undocumented workers.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Republican strategist Mike Madrid said it was wishful thinking to believe that Trump would provide special treatment to undocumented immigrants who have long lived and worked in the United States. But he heard that sentiment among Latino voters in focus groups.
“I believe they will stick to the rules and be rewarded for it,” Madrid said. “Republicans have never seriously thought about legal immigration, let alone illegal immigration. They are allowing people to believe it without good reason.”
The Republican Party’s growing appeal to Latino voters has been especially evident in places like the Texas border city of Del Rio. As ProPublica previously reported, Trump flipped the county in which Del Rio is located from blue to red in 2020. This year, he won with 63% of the vote..
Sergio Garza Castillo, a Mexican immigrant who runs a gas station and convenience store in Del Rio, exemplifies that political shift. Garza Castillo said he came to the United States legally as a teenager in the 1980s after his father, a U.S. citizen, filed a petition and waited more than a decade to bring his family across the border.
Garza Castillo has tended to vote Democratic since becoming a U.S. citizen in 2000, and has long advocated for a more path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including many of his friends and acquaintances. I believed in the Democratic Party’s commitment to the immigration reform it could deliver.
But Democrats “promised and never delivered,” Garza Castillo said. “They did not normalize the status of people who were already here, but instead let in a lot of immigrants who did not come by the right channels.” He believes asylum seekers should have to wait outside the country like that.
he said He began to ignore the Democratic Party to September 2021, That was when nearly 20,000 Haitian immigrants seeking asylum crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and camped under the city’s international bridge near the Garza Castillo gas station. Federal authorities told immigrants to wait until processing was complete. Some stayed there for weeks, sleeping under tarps and blankets with little access to water and food. Garza Castillo said he and other business owners lost money when the federal government closed an international bridge that was Del Rio’s economic engine.
Some Haitian immigrants were eventually deported. Others were able to enter the U.S. to seek asylum and were given notices to appear in court due to a backlogged immigration system that can take years to resolve cases. “This to me is an insult to people who have lived here for more than 10 years and have not been able to adjust their status,” Garza Castillo said.
He hopes Trump will seize the opportunity to expand his support among Latino voters by opening a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have been here for years. “If we do that, I think the Republican Party will be strong here for a long time.”
