President-elect Donald Trump plans to scrap a long-standing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy preventing the agency from arresting undocumented immigrants in sensitive places like schools, hospitals, and houses of worship, as well as at funerals, weddings and public demonstrations without supervisor approval.
The incoming president plans to rescind the policy as soon as his first day in office, reports NBC News. The move is part of Trump’s plan to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
The current policy has been in place since 2011 and has been respected to some extent by the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. Although the current policy places restrictions on making arrests in schools, hospitals, and churches, ICE agents can still conduct raids in these locations under special circumstances when there is an imminent threat.
Current Policies Banning ICE Raids of Hospitals and Schools Protect the General Public
The current policy protects public health and benefits the public in general, according to ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt.
“We don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies,” he told NBC News.
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States that have already cracked down on undocumented immigrations have experienced the negative consequences of these actions.
For example, Javier Hidalgo, legal director of RAICES, a nonprofit group in San Antonio that advocates for refugees and immigrants says Texas’ new law that requires some hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status is already pushing “folks further into the shadows.”
Trump’s rescinding of the current policy will also lead many undocumented immigrants, as well as their families and friends, to avoid engaging with law enforcement.
“This reluctance could severely undermine public safety by deterring crime victims or witnesses from cooperating with investigations out of fear of deportation, resulting in negative effects on public safety that extend far beyond immigrant communities,” according to the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force.
Additionally, in light of the current labor-shortage, the mass deportation of foreign-born hospital workers could, quite literally, force the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system, reports Forbes.
“It is no exaggeration to say that, without immigrant health care workers, Americans will die for lack of care,” says article author Howard Gleckman.
Schools Will Be Hit Hard by Mass Deportations
The threat of mass deportations could cause chaos in K-12 school districts, reports ChalkBeat.
For example, in 2019, when ICE raided central Mississippi chicken processing plants and arrested nearly 700 undocumented workers, “Teens got frantic texts to leave class and find their younger siblings. Unfamiliar faces whose names weren’t on the pick-up list showed up to take children home. School staff scrambled to make sure no child went home to an empty house, while the owner of a local gym threw together a temporary shelter for kids with nowhere else to go.”
In one district, a quarter of its Latino students, around 150 children, didn’t show up to school the following day.
If Trump carries out his mass deportation plans, similar problems could affect millions of school children across the country. Educators would be responsible for providing food, clothing, counseling, and more to the students whose parents have been arrested.
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Texas and Florida are expected to be the first to experience the impact of Trump’s immigration policies due to their governors both supporting the incoming president’s deportation plans.
In response, immigrant rights groups across the nation are conducting know-your-rights trainings and assisting vulnerable families. Additionally, families need to make arrangements — including planning for legal guardianship over their children, financial accounts and properties — should one or both parents who are not documented be picked up by ICE.
