President Donald Trump is very well known for his border policies and how vocal he is about it from his previous term.
For instance President Trump’s “Build The Wall” initiative.
President Trump also on the first day of his second term issued a variety of executive orders, many of which will make it harder for undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States and thrive.
An executive order is an instruction or rule issued by the President of the United States to manage how the federal government works. These orders don’t need to be approved by Congress, but they must follow the U.S. Constitution and existing laws.
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are law enforcement officers who enforce immigration and customs laws in the U.S. They have two main jobs: arresting people who are in the country illegally and investigating crimes like drug smuggling or human trafficking.
“I can’t just stop thinking about maybe all the SALTT kids who might be getting impacted from this,” said sophomore Diego Figueroa-Valcourt, referring to the children and families at the Guatemala Mayan Center in Lake Worth, Florida, where many ILS students and faculty volunteer.
Recently, President Trump removed a policy that prevented ICE Agents from arresting undocumented immigrants at schools, hospitals, and churches. As a result of this many immigrants are concerned and attendance at some of these institutions has declined significantly as a result of that fear.
“It just doesn’t make sense what he’s doing and that I think its totally unfair,” said sophomore Raul Alvarez.
This means that children that could have been born in the U.S. to an undocumented immigrant might face their parents’ removal from the country.
The administration is expanding the detention center in Guantanamo Bay to increase ICE’s capacity to detain immigrants. At the same time, deportation flights using military planes have already departed to a variety of destinations such as Colombia, Mexico, and India, returning undocumented immigrants to their countries of origin.
While many Americans only focus on President Trump deporting Central and South Americans, this process is not just limited to them as the deportations will occur in locations all over the world.
Florida has stated that they will be cooperating with the agents.