Pall of gloom descends on undocumented migrants

Gustavo Arellano, Tribune News Service

Donald Trump won’t be sworn in as our 47th president for two more months, but he’s already pleasing his base in one way: undocumented immigrants and their allies are running scared. The former and future commander in chief repeatedly vowed during his campaign to start mass deportations the moment he enters office. Those affected are taking Trump at his word. Nonprofits and community leaders dedicated to helping immigrants are strategising about how to mount a defence. Sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles and Santa Ana are readying for lawsuits by the Trump administration or the withholding of federal funds.

Meanwhile, the migrants themselves are prepared for the worst. I know people who are making plans to leave for their home countries, US-born children in tow, by Inauguration Day. The terror of not knowing what’s coming is leaving too many people I care about depressed and with little to no hope for the future.

As the son of a man who first entered this country in the trunk of a Chevy in the 1960s, I have lived a life where people without papers were the norm instead of a Fox News talking point, and I’m angry. I’ve spent my career as a journalist — in articles and books, on radio and television — trying to convince sceptics through stats, anecdotes and appeals to reason that people who entered the country illegally are no different from native-born citizens in the content of their character. That nearly all of them embody the spirit of those who came here under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty so long ago, no matter how much Trump and his future vice president, JD Vance, railed to the contrary.

With sentiment against undocumented immigrants higher than it has been in decades — especially among Latinos — writing positive stories about the estimated 11 million US residents who aren’t supposed to be here can feel as futile as screaming into a hurricane. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up. That’s why, as this country readies for Thanksgiving, I want to give gracias to undocumented immigrants. It’s a sentiment they don’t hear nearly enough.

Thank you to the estimated 42% of farmworkers who lack legal authority to work in this country, according to the latest US Department of Labour’s National Agricultural Workers Survey. There’s a good chance that the bounty on your table this Thursday passed through their hands.

Thank you to the undocumented immigrants who pay $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which also found that they paid $25.7 billion into Social Security and $6 billion into Medicare. They contribute to systems that they cannot benefit from but that critics of illegal immigration tap into without a second thought.

Thank you to the estimated half-million Mexican nationals and their American-born children spurred to leave this country by federal and local officials during the Great Depression because undocumented immigrants weren’t worthy of economic relief. Those repatriated people left behind nearly everything but their dignity.

To the hundreds of thousands of Mexican men deported in the 1950s under Operation Wetback, a federal programme Trump has praised despite its offensive name: thank you for not keeping quiet about the abuse and humiliation you all endured.

To the Cubans who entered the US on makeshift rafts, knowing you wouldn’t get deported if you landed in Florida while the same privilege wasn’t extended to Haitians: thank you for exposing the hypocrisy of this nation’s immigration policy. To the unaccompanied minors who have come from Central America for the last quarter of a century: thank you for showing more bravery in your young lives than anyone in Trump’s administration can ever dream of.

To the so-called paper sons and daughters, Chinese nationals who stayed in the Uby pretending you were related to American citizens: thank you for the ingenuity you showed in circumventing sanctioned racism.

Thank you to the Chinese migrants escaping mass lynchings during the Mexican Revolution, whose mere intent of entering this country led to the creation of the Border Patrol — you showed how Americans welcome persecuted people only if it suits the political climate.

To the so-called ship jumpers, migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe — but especially Greece — who arrived at port cities and sneaked past immigration authorities after the US in effect barred migration from the region in 1924: thank you for the reminder that this country discriminated against people we now consider white but who were seen as subhuman at the time.

To the people who came here without papers as children — long known as Dreamers — who are culturally American and now face the prospect of being sent to countries you have only faint memories of, or no memories at all: gracias for forcing politicians to carve out protections for ‘ustedes,’ protections Trump’s cronies have vowed to end even as their boss has expressed some sympathy in the past.

To Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, Orange County’s first casualty of the Iraq war: you came here illegally as an infant, grew up in Costa Mesa as a legal resident and became a citizen only after losing your life in 2003: thank you for your sacrifice.

To the undocumented people who were and are my friends, my classmates, my interns and co-workers: thank you for teaching me that citizenship is usually wasted on the ungrateful and not granted enough to those who deserve it.

Thank you to the thousands who are planning to take to the streets in the coming days and weeks, hoping against hope that mass protests will make a difference to a man with a shriveled heart and the people who elected him.

Hope must spring eternal even in the face of gloom — especially in the face of it. And to my father, of course, who came to this country illegally multiple times, who still proudly calls himself a mojado — a wetback — as a reminder of where he came from and how.

Papi: Gracias for leaving Mexico as an 18-year-old ne’er-do-well with no chance of getting a green card through the proper channels and proving that anyone can succeed in this country if they have the drive. I can never forsake undocumented immigrants because of all of you, public opinion be damned.