Donald Trump says so many seemingly off-the-wall things that many Americans may hope it’s all empty blather. That needs to change. With less than two months until Trump’s return to the Oval Office, an immigration earthquake looms. Unlike his first term, Trump will enter the White House with a competent, task-solving chief of staff in Susie Wiles. And he will do so while surrounded by policy aides who are far more likely to be empowered true believers than those he hired the last time around.
Trump has repeatedly said he will use the obscure Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly martial all federal resources, including the military, to end the “invasion” of the nation. Incoming border czar Tom Homan — who helped oversee 4.8 million deportations during the eight years of the Obama istration — is eager to deport that many people in his first six months. The mass detention camps that seem incompatible with American ideals to so many across the world appear inevitable. The economists from across the ideological spectrum who warn of the chaos that will ensue in a nation where many employers hunt for workers don’t have a seat at the table. Those who reject the idea for its cruelty won’t even be heard.
But the views of senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller are even more antithetical to U.S. values and even more threatening to American prosperity. Not only has Miller long since stopped bothering to make the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, he is an ardent advocate of “denaturalization” — of hunting for reasons to revoke the legal status of millions of residents who played by the rules.
One doesn’t have to agree with the views of Trump, Homan or Miller to believe that President Joe Biden botched immigration with executive orders that encouraged 7.8 million illegal border crossings in his first 40 months in office. By this June, the biggest critics of his policies included Democratic mayors of big cities who were overwhelmed by the unprecedented numbers of refugees they had to help out.
But Miller’s view of immigrants as akin to parasites is a recipe for the United States to go the way of fading Europe. Because of the aging U.S.-born population, our much-envied recent economic growth has been fueled, not diminished, by immigrants. They not only make up one-fifth of the total U.S. workforce, foreign-born residents are more likely to be full-time workers. They are also disproportionately represented among the most successful tech entrepreneurs. Historically, more than half of the billion-dollar startup companies in the U.S. have been founded by legal immigrants. Yet the most famous immigrant entrepreneur of them all — Elon Musk — uses his access to Trump to affirm his economic illiteracy.
The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board hopes our grim expectations go unmet. Money talks, so there is a very strong chance that the powerful business interests that backed Trump in the campaign will turn on him if his policies risk economic chaos. The courts may also push back, starting with any attempt to use military personnel in unprecedented ways on American soil.
But Republicans in Congress aren’t coming to the rescue. Maybe no one is. And so beginning Jan. 20, 2025, life in San Diego and all of America is likely to face wrenching change as a result. Buckle up.
