‘A lot of fear and anxiety’: Immigration attorneys address concerns as Donald Trump names ‘border czar,’ deputy chief of policy
CHICAGO (WGN) — President-Elect Donald Trump is a little more than two months away from inauguration, but he's already started preparing for day one by naming his "border czar" and deputy chief of policy, who will both be in charge of carrying out his plans to close the border and conduct a mass deportation operation.
Trump named Tom Homan , his former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, as "border czar" in his incoming administration, while longtime Trump advisor Stephen Miller , an immigration hard-liner, was named as Trump's deputy chief of policy.
As it relates to Chicagoland, a number of local immigration attorneys said they have experienced a rise in calls from people across Illinois who fear being separated from their families and losing the lives they've built stateside.
Jose Vera, Executive Director of the Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project (SSIP), said his organization is taking a worst case scenario approach to preparing for Trump's presidency, hoping that isn't the case once he's in office.
"When people show you who they are, believe them the first time," Vera said. "We are preparing. We are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst ... There's a lot of fear and anxiety with family separation and a fear of workplace raids."
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Immigration attorney Fiona McEntee said her office has received calls with similar sentiments for months leading up to the election.
"From our experience, we could feel the fear in the community well in advance of the election results," McEntee said.
Homan spoke about joining the Trump Administration during the Republican National Convention back in July.
"As a guy who spent 34 years deporting illegal aliens, I've got a message to the millions of illegal alients that Joe Biden's released in our country," Homan said. "You better start packing now because you're going home."
Homan is a tough-talking former Border Patrol agent who worked his way up to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 and 2018 as the acting director. He was never confirmed by the Senate, and his new role does not require it.
Bringing him on shows the lengths that the Trump administration is likely to go to carry out the hardline immigration pledges that were a hallmark of the campaign. However, Homan has also pushed back on rhetoric suggesting massive roundups.
At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington earlier this year, Homan said that while he thinks the government needed to prioritize national security threats, "no one's off the table. If you're here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder."
He also said: "You've got my word. Trump comes back in January, I'll be in his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation operation this country's ever seen."
He said in recent interviews, however, that those targeted — at least initially — would be people posing a risk to public safety and pushed back on suggestions that the U.S. military would be assisting in finding and deporting immigrants.
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McEntee expressed more concern over Miller, who lacks the familiarity of the US immigration that Homan has, but is just as much of an ardent supporter of President-Elect Trump's stance on immigration.
"Stephen Miller, who orchestrated the family separation policy, cruelty was absolutely the point," McEntee said. "That won't be a surprise if that happens again. That happened before and the campaign ran on this anti-immigrant hatred that was most likely directed towards Black and Brown immigrants."
Organizations like SSIP and attorneys like McEntee said they're advising people through "Know Your Rights" workshops and offering expertise by looking into individual cases.
According to immigration rights organizations and attorneys, something that has brought some level of peace when it comes to the uncertainty surrounding Trump's day one plans for immigration is living in a state like Illinois where leading politicians have shown support for immigrants.
"As a DACA recipient, I am glad to live here in the State of Illinois," Vera said.
For those who may need help with immigration law, McEntee's firm can be found online here:
