NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Immigration advocates in New York have increased their warning about United States President-elect Donald J Trump’s mass deportation agenda, saying its a threat to America’s democracy and future.

“Trump’s latest remarks reveal a vision for America that is as dangerous as it is cruel,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organisation that represents more than 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York.

“Rooted in fear, division, and an effort to dehumanise millions of immigrants, his agenda is a direct attack on the values that have long defined the United States: Compassion and inclusion,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

In his first televised sit-down interview since winning the 2024 Presidential election, Trump last Sunday vowed to implement sweeping immigration policies, including ending birthright citizenship and deporting families with mixed immigration status.

“These policies are part of the conservative Project 2025 blueprint, which Trump denied was his platform during the election, but is now being embraced. By pledging to carry out the largest mass deportation in history, Trump isn’t just targeting immigrant communities, he’s attacking the very fabric of the country.

“With his full embrace of the draconian policies outlined in Project 2025, Trump is creating a future where millions of families will live in constant fear of being torn apart, and where entire communities and economic sectors will be destabilised,” Awawdeh said, adding “as we approach Trump’s second term, we must stand united in rejecting his white supremacist agenda”.

Trump will officially assume the US presidency on January 20, 2025 — his inauguration day.

Awawdeh said the stakes are high and “we can’t allow this vision of cruelty, exclusion, and fear to become our reality. We must do everything in our power to build a future without fear, and where every person can live with dignity and opportunity”.

He said Project 2025 is a policy blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation for overhauling the United States Government by expanding presidential power and imposing an ultra-conservative social vision.

“The 900-page policy playbook seeks to create a nationwide deportation system that will have devastating consequences for many vulnerable communities,” Awawdeh warned.

“Donald Trump has explicitly threatened to deploy local law enforcement to deport all undocumented immigrants in the US — an estimated 11 million people — including around 4,500,000 people residing in New York.

“These policies undermine the rights and dignity of immigrants but also aim to dismantle the principles of inclusion and justice that define our country. Mass deportations would cost New York City alone billions of dollars in economic activity, reducing the workforce by hundreds of thousands of people and destroying countless small businesses,” Awawdeh said.

In his televised interview on NBC, Trump said his mass deportation agenda is aimed not only at Caribbean and other immigrants with criminal histories, but at “other people outside of criminals.

“It’s a very tough thing to do. You know, you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally,” Trump said, adding that he will not break up families by deporting members separately.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back,” he vowed.

Additionally, the US President-elect said he will work with Democrats in preserving the legal status of immigrants, known as “Dreamers”, who came to the US as children with their parents.

“We have to do something about the Dreamers, because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age, and many of these are middle-aged people now,” he said. “They don’t even speak the language of their country. And yes, we’re going to do something about that.

“I will work with the Democrats on a plan, and if we can come up with a plan — but the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the Dreamers.”

Though he had indicated that he would support Dreamers in his first term, Trump, ironically, sought to terminate the programme that protects them, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which was instituted by former President Barack Obama.

However, the US Supreme Court in 2020 prohibited his efforts.

Zuleima Dominguez, a DACA recipient and lead organiser at Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy group with more than 28,000 members, told
CMC, “Let it be clear, in 2017 the Trump administration chose to terminate DACA. Ever since, DACA recipients, like me, have been in and out of the courtroom. And, at this very moment, every day, we anxiously await a decision from the 5th Circuit (court) that will dictate the fate of this life-changing programme.

“Donald Trump cannot say he wants DACA recipients to stay in this country, while being the one responsible for trying to terminate DACA. Every day — for the past seven years I have lived in limbo — surviving relentless attacks on our immigrant communities with the constant fear of having my family torn apart. The livelihoods and futures of hundreds of thousands of immigrants depend on the DACA programme,” Dominguez said.

Awawdeh said that “instead of creating a pathway to citizenship for those who have long called America home, Trump’s nominees stand ready to reshape the country, abandon humanitarian obligations, and destroy millions of families through unnecessary deportations”.