Mass Deportations & The Return of Family Separation

Previously, we’ve discussed the outbreak of warfare in MAGA between the “close the border now” faction and the “but, please let in my highly skilled cheap tech labor pool (so I can make more money than I would if I had to employ Americans)” faction. No matter who wins, something the dispute won’t do is wipe out Trump’s campaign promise to engage in mass deportations. That promise is embedded in Project 2025 and continues to be a theme Trump lands on. He went so far as to tell NBC News in November that there would be “no price tag” for his mass deportation plans. And, mass deportations means a return of family separations.

Trump supporters chanting “Send them back” at a June rally.

The resurrection of the inhumane “zero tolerance” policy that led to family separations during Trump’s first administration is still haunting. While that policy was in effect, 6,000 children were separated from their parents and guardians. About 1,000 have still not been reunited, despite a settlement the ACLU reached with the Biden Administration. I wrote about that development in Ms. L., et al. v. ICE, et al., the 2018 class action case that asked the courts to enjoin further separation of parents and children at the southwest border in October of 2023. It is heartbreaking that some of the children who were taken from their families were too young at the time to be able to provide information about who they were and where they came from, and even now, have not been reunited with their parents.

That’s where we’re headed again. There has already been extensive reporting on how the private prison industry is gearing up to build—and profit from—massive detention centers. Stop for a minute and think about why those facilities would be needed. It’s not for people who commit crimes. Anyone charged with a violent crime like murder or assault or people charged with federal immigration crimes like illegal reentry into the country after prior deportation will be housed in the state or federal criminal justice systems and held in custody in jails and prisons. So, who would this massive expenditure on new facilities involve? That would be for people who aren’t charged with any crime but are being deported because they are in this country without legal immigration status; people who go to work every day; people who benefit our economy, including small business owners, school children, families, babies.

The thing is, separating kids from their families is a feature, not a bug, of Trump’s immigration policies. Even if family separation was an unintended consequence during the 1.0 administration—and it wasn’t—Trump understands by now how this works and that more kids will inevitably be forcibly separated from their families if he proceeds with mass deportations.

I am no historian, but sometimes, a little foray into history is instructive.

In October of 2021, the New York Times ran a report on the origin of the family separation policy during the Trump Administration. As U.S. Attorneys in the border states “recoiled” from an order to prosecute parents even if it meant breaking up families, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions told them, “We need to take away children.” One of them, taking notes in shorthand, wrote, “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

A feature, not a bug.

The Times report continued, “Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.”

“‘We have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants,’ one government prosecutor wrote to his superiors. ‘I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log.’”

At a meeting of law enforcement officers in 2018, Jeff Sessions cited the Bible to justify family separation, telling the group that the Apostle Paul gave “a clear and wise command in Romans 13, for people to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”

This time, Trump’s immigration policy comes online with far fewer, if any, guardrails in place. Trump’s proposed border czar, Tom Homan, who oversaw family separation during the first Trump administration, has already promised to bring it back. The Washington Post reported that Homan, in a late December interview, said he would “look to hold parents with children in ‘soft-sided’ tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges” and that “The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children.” He said it would be up to those families to decide whether to leave together “or be split up,”—Sophie’s Choice for parents who fled dangerous conditions to protect their children.

Our immigration laws give presidents broad authority to deport people who are in this country without legal status, leaving them with enormous discretion over how to implement them. Some presidents, like Ronald Reagan, have opted for forgiveness. In 1987, Reagan made any immigrant who'd entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty, providing protection for three million people. That is not the path Donald Trump has laid out after rejecting a Democratic immigration reform proposal last year that would have given Republicans most of what they’ve been trying to get on the issue for decades.

For Trump, mass deportations may be all political theater. It’s hard to imagine he has strong convictions against using undocumented migrant labor, in light of reports that the man who cried “They’re taking your jobs” during the campaign may have used undocumented laborers to build Trump Tower and work in some of his properties. But the people who are impacted by his policies are real people—kids who may grow up thinking their parents didn’t want them and left them behind, parents tortured with uncertainty about their children’s fate. In 2018, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics said Trump’s policy of separating families at the U.S. border with Mexico “amounts to child abuse.” Later that year, the American Medical Association joined the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the American Psychological Association and the American College of Physicians, in urging the administration to end its family separation policy because of the long-term consequences for children’s mental and physical health.

In the first Trump administration, lawyers became heroes overnight when they flocked to airports to try and prevent the immediate removal of people subject to Trump’s “Muslim Ban.” The legal path this go-round may not be as straightforward. Trump will be relying on existing laws and power that his predecessors hesitated to exercise in the extreme way he has said he will. The lawyers can challenge some of the means he uses to implement his policies—for instance, if he tries to engage the military in domestic law enforcement, which is prohibited by The Posse Comitatus Act—but the federal government, and so, the president, is largely left in charge of immigration policy and enforcing the law.

It’s a bleak prospect. It’s one we must not ignore.

Do you remember this story? In 2017, Roberto Beristain, who had been in the United States illegally for almost 20 years and had no criminal record, was caught up in Trump’s wave of deportations. His wife and children were American citizens. He had just become the owner of a local restaurant. CBS reported that after he was deported, Beristain’s wife and his friends began to reconsider their votes for Trump. Apparently, just like a lot of Americans in 2024, they didn’t take his campaign promises seriously. "I voted for [Trump] because he said he was going to get rid of the bad hombres. Roberto is a good hombre." Beristain’s friend Dave Keck was quoted as saying.

The lawyers will do their part, but when Trump starts using the power of the presidency to engage in mass deportations that will harm kids, families, and our communities, it’s going to be up to us to let the White House and our elected officials know what we think about it. It’s just possible that a lot of people who supported Trump, like Bertain’s friends and family, will join in. That was what turned the tide during Trump’s first administration. Public backlash gave Republicans a bad case of nerves, especially as the midterms approached. Images of kids in cages, sleeping on cement floors under plastic space blankets, with little ones being cared for by young teenage girls forced a step back.

It’s hard to believe people didn’t take Trump seriously during the campaign when he talked about mass deportations, but that sentiment that deportation is only meant for “bad guys” and that their friends, family, babysitter, and so forth are “good guys” is bound to develop. It did the last time, too. Instead of meeting their voices with “I told you so,” bring them into the fold.

Public backlash is something we know a little bit about here at Civil Discourse. We know how to write, call, and show up at our elected officials’ offices. We know how to build groups in our communities and make sure our voices are heard. Lots of things that matter are going to start happening as we get closer to inauguration day. Separating families is something we cannot set aside. In the words of Alex Vindman, “Here, right matters.” Separating families is not right, and we cannot ignore it.

We’re in this together,

Joyce