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    • What do they think of his re-election?
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    What do they think of his re-election?

    Umito Posted on

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    After Donald Trump won the presidency, some North Jersey immigrants expressed joy and others expressed concern about what his next term would mean for immigration in the United States.

    Carlos Rendo, a Republican, emigrated from Cuba as a child with his family in the 1960s. Rendo, an immigration attorney and mayor of Woodcliff Lake in Bergen County, said he was happy to see Trump elected for another term, as did his clients, who were immigrants who voted for Trump.

    “I think a lot of Hispanics who came here and did things the right way voted for Trump,” Rendo said. “A lot of my clientele were all telling me, ‘We come here, we work and we’re trying to make things right.’

    Maria Isabel Nakandakari, an Elizabeth resident who emigrated from Peru in 2017, voted on Election Day in her first presidential election as a U.S. citizen. She said she felt “uncertainty” about Trump returning to the White House, given his stance on immigration.

    “Trump has talked about the removal or mass expulsion of newly arrived immigrants. I am not sure about their fate and I am also afraid of what will happen here,” Nakandakari said with the help of a translator.

    During his election campaign, Republican Trump said that if he returned to the White House, his administration would push for expulsion of 11 million undocumented immigrants. Its platform on immigration, based on that of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 and that of his own campaign Agenda 47including signing an executive order on the first day of his presidency to end automatic citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and restart construction of the border wall.

    He also considered repealing temporary protected status designations for immigrants from countries that suffered war or major natural disasters, as he did during his first term.

    He also vilified immigrants with dehumanizing language during his election campaign. During the September presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the president-elect echoed the racist attack on Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, championed by his running mate, JD Vance, when he let escaping uninvited: “In Springfield, they They eat dogs. The people who entered. They eat the cats, they eat the pets of the people who live there.

    But despite his anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump gained considerable support on Election Day from Latinos, which helped him prevail over Harris, according to leaving the polls produced by CNN and BNC (45% of Latino voters) while Harris received 53% support. This represents a 13-point increase in support for Trump from Latinos compared to the 2020 election. In those exit polls, their top concerns were rising costs and inflation.

    Latinos for Trump

    Rendo said it didn’t shock him that Latinos came out in large numbers for Trump.

    “I wasn’t surprised by the results. I think the two main issues he really focused on were the economy and immigration, and consistently in the polls I think the public has felt that these issues needed special attention,” Rendo said.

    Rendo said immigrants who are his clients and who voted for Trump said one of the reasons they did so was because they believed in legal avenues for immigration, such as obtaining a green card, also known as a permanent resident card. This card allows an immigrant to live and work in the United States indefinitely and become a U.S. citizen after a specified period of time.

    “There is — even though it’s a minority — this criminal element coming in…and a few other groups that are ruining the lives of the rest of the immigrant population,” Rendo said. “I think the immigrants really wanted this to stop.”

    He doesn’t believe Trump would carry out mass deportations as he said during the campaign.

    “I have to judge him by his first term. During his first term, he deported individuals, but the majority of them were people with criminal backgrounds or who were subject to orders expulsion,” Rendo said. “Basically, he’s saying he’s not against immigration, but that you have to emigrate legally to this country.”

    Department of Homeland Security data shows that in 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement together made 337,287 removals of illegal immigrants, an increase of 17% over compared to the previous year.

    However, a report by the Pew Research Center points out that the removals were lower than the numbers seen during then-President Barack Obama’s administration, when there were more than 400,000 per year between fiscal 2012 and 2014. But compared to Biden , the 2018 number was higher in a year. that in most Biden’s entire term (as of February 2024) with a total of 339,751 deletions.

    Uncertain about the next presidency

    Nakandakari remembers eating breakfast at home the morning after Election Day with her husband and mother when they heard the news of Trump’s return to the White House.

    “When we found out, we looked at each other and were surprised. We didn’t know what to say. The first thing that came to my mind was what was going to happen next, everything that was going to follow “Nakandakari said. .

    Nakandakari said news of Trump’s re-election had raised fears about his call for mass deportations.

    “That’s one of my biggest concerns, is the mass deportation of millions of immigrants, but also how that will affect the economy. If that happens, how it will affect ordinary people like us ” said Nakandakari, who works at a factory in upstate New York. Jersey.

    His fears about the economic consequences of Trump’s threat of mass deportation are not unfounded.

    The nonpartisan American Immigration Council, in a report released last month, found that the cost of mass deportation of a million people per year could cost $88 billion per year due to expenses “associated with arrest, detention, legal processing and upon referral”.

    The report also found that this could result in a substantial reduction in federal tax revenue for the U.S. government, as undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in 2022. dollars in state and local taxes and contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Social Security. Health insurance.

    Asked whether Latinos voted in large numbers for Trump, Nakandakari took a nuanced stance toward them.

    “For me, voting is a right, it’s a privilege where everyone has the opportunity to vote,” Nakandakari said. “I have no feelings toward the people who voted for Trump or the Latinos who voted for Trump. Everyone has the right to choose the candidate that suits them best.”

    Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news in your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

    Email: [email protected]

    Twitter/X: @ricardokaul

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