#“Immigration Attorney in Houston”

[sunitakapoor2024]

Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston: Why Sunita Kapoor is Your Best Choice

Navigating the complexities of U.S. immigration law can be daunting, especially when you're dealing with life-changing decisions like obtaining a visa, protecting your residency, or applying for citizenship. This is where a Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston becomes indispensable. In this blog, we’ll explore why hiring an immigration lawyer is crucial and how Sunita Kapoor, a leading immigration lawyer in Houston, can guide you through this process seamlessly.

Why Do You Need a Visa Immigration Lawyer?

Immigration law is intricate and subject to frequent changes. Without professional guidance, even minor errors can lead to delays, rejections, or legal complications. Here are some compelling reasons why hiring a Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston is essential:

1. Understanding Complex Immigration Laws

U.S. immigration laws involve various visa categories, eligibility criteria, and extensive documentation. A seasoned immigration lawyer like Sunita Kapoor has in-depth knowledge of these complexities and can provide tailored advice based on your unique circumstances.

2. Avoiding Costly Mistakes

Filing errors, incomplete applications, or missing deadlines can derail your immigration process. A Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston ensures that your paperwork is accurate, complete, and submitted on time. This minimizes risks and improves the likelihood of success.

3. Navigating Through Legal Challenges

If your visa application has been denied or delayed, a lawyer can analyze the reasons, file appeals, or negotiate waivers. Sunita Kapoor has years of experience handling such cases with precision and care, making her a trusted name in Houston’s legal community.

Types of Immigration Services Offered

A Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston offers a wide range of services to cater to individuals, families, and businesses. Below are some of the key services provided by Sunita Kapoor:

1. Family-Based Visas

Family reunification is a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy. Whether you’re applying for a spousal visa, fiancé visa, or family green card, Sunita Kapoor can assist you in navigating the process.

2. Employment-Based Visas

For businesses and professionals seeking employment opportunities in the U.S., securing a work visa can be a complex process. From H-1B visas to EB-5 investor visas, Sunita Kapoor ensures your application aligns with immigration laws.

3. Student and Exchange Visitor Visas

Planning to study in the U.S.? A Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston can guide you through the application process for F-1, J-1, and M-1 visas, ensuring a smooth transition to your academic journey.

4. Naturalization and Citizenship

Achieving U.S. citizenship is a dream for many immigrants. With the help of Sunita Kapoor, you can confidently navigate the naturalization process, including preparing for interviews and tests.

5. Deportation Defense

Facing deportation proceedings is a stressful and life-altering experience. With a lawyer like Sunita Kapoor by your side, you’ll have a strong defense to fight for your rights and potentially remain in the U.S.

Why Choose Sunita Kapoor?

Houston is home to numerous immigration lawyers, but Sunita Kapoor stands out for several reasons. Her commitment to her clients and her deep understanding of immigration law make her a trusted advisor in the community.

1. Proven Track Record

With years of experience, Sunita Kapoor has successfully handled thousands of immigration cases. From straightforward visa applications to complex deportation defenses, her expertise ensures positive outcomes for her clients.

2. Client-Centered Approach

Every immigration case is unique, and Sunita Kapoor understands this. She takes the time to listen, assess, and provide personalized solutions that address her clients’ needs.

3. Fluent in Multiple Languages

Effective communication is vital in immigration cases. Sunita Kapoor and her team offer services in multiple languages, breaking down language barriers and ensuring clarity for all clients.

4. Commitment to Advocacy

Sunita Kapoor doesn’t just handle cases—she’s a fierce advocate for immigrant rights. Her dedication extends beyond legal representation to helping clients feel empowered and supported throughout the process.

The Benefits of Hiring a Local Lawyer

Choosing a Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston offers several advantages:

Familiarity with Local Policies: Houston has a large immigrant population, and local lawyers understand regional immigration trends and policies.

Accessible Consultations: Being local means you can easily schedule in-person consultations to discuss your case in detail.

Community Connections: A Houston-based lawyer like Sunita Kapoor is well-connected within the local legal and immigrant community, which can be advantageous for your case.

Success Stories

Sunita Kapoor has helped countless individuals and families achieve their immigration goals. Here are a few real-life examples of her success:

A Family Reunited: A client struggling with spousal visa delays approached Sunita Kapoor, who expedited the process through strategic legal intervention. Today, the family is happily reunited.

A Business Owner’s Dream Realized: A foreign entrepreneur looking to start a business in Houston faced visa complications. With Sunita Kapoor’s expertise, they secured an EB-5 investor visa and successfully established their venture.

Deportation Case Won: A client facing deportation was able to remain in the U.S. after Sunita Kapoor provided a robust defense, showcasing her dedication and skill in immigration law.

The Consultation Process

Getting started with a Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston like Sunita Kapoor is easy. Here’s what you can expect during the initial consultation:

Case Evaluation: Discuss your immigration goals and challenges.

Document Review: Share any relevant paperwork or previous applications.

Customized Advice: Receive tailored recommendations based on your situation.

Action Plan: Work with Sunita Kapoor to create a step-by-step strategy to achieve your goals.

Tips for Choosing the Right Immigration Lawyer

When searching for a Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston, keep these tips in mind:

Check Credentials: Ensure the lawyer is licensed and specializes in immigration law.

Read Reviews: Look for client testimonials to gauge their reputation.

Assess Communication: Choose someone who communicates clearly and keeps you informed.

Schedule a Consultation: Meet in person to evaluate if they’re the right fit for your case.

With Sunita Kapoor, you can rest assured that you’re working with a trusted, experienced professional dedicated to your success.

Conclusion

When it comes to navigating U.S. immigration law, hiring a qualified Visa Immigration Lawyer Houston is not just an option—it’s a necessity. With her unmatched expertise, personalized approach, and unwavering commitment to her clients, Sunita Kapoor is the ideal partner for all your immigration needs.

Whether you’re applying for a visa, seeking permanent residency, or fighting deportation, don’t leave your future to chance. Contact Sunita Kapoor today to take the first step toward achieving your immigration goals.

Call Sunita Kapoor Now! Empower your immigration journey with the guidance of one of Houston’s most trusted lawyers.

Contact Now

Call Now — (713) 782–3332

Email: law@sunitakapoor.com

Website: Sunita Kapoor

Studio Location: Houston

[abbasiimmigrationtx]

Abbasi Immigration Law Firm is a leading provider of legal services for families in need of a family based immigration lawyer in Houston. The firm offers assistance with green card applications, fiancé visas, and other family immigration solutions. Their compassionate lawyers understand the emotional and legal complexities of keeping families together and work diligently to ensure a smooth and stress-free process.

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[sunitakapoorsblog]

[abbasiimmigration]

Need a qualified immigration lawyer Houston, Texas? Our experienced attorneys provide quick, competent family immigration at reasonable rates. Whether you are seeking permanent residency for yourself or a loved one or you're facing deportation, our Houston immigration lawyers are here to help. Contact us at: https://abbasiimmigrationlaw.com/

[ridenwithbiden]

"In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.

Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene.

In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”

Natalie Khawam, the family’s attorney, responded, “I think the military will be paying—taking care of it.” Trump replied, “Good. They’ll do a military. That’s good. If you need help, I’ll help you out.” Later, a reporter covering the meeting asked Trump, “Have you offered to do that for other families before?” Trump responded, “I have. I have. Personally. I have to do it personally. I can’t do it through government.” The reporter then asked: “So you’ve written checks to help for other families before this?” Trump turned to the family, still present, and said, “I have, I have, because some families need help … Maybe you don’t need help, from a financial standpoint. I have no idea what—I just think it’s a horrific thing that happened. And if you did need help, I’m going to—I’ll be there to help you.”

A public memorial service was held in Houston two weeks after the White House meeting. It was followed by a private funeral and burial in a local cemetery, attended by, among others, the mayor of Houston and the city’s police chief. Highways were shut down, and mourners lined the streets.

Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous “leadership failures” at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the base’s commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder “shocked our conscience” and “forced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.”

According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthy’s comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.

In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, “Mark Esper has been terminated”), was in attendance, along with Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?”

According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!�� He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”

Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston.

Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra Guillén, Vanessa’s sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. “I am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,” the statement reads. “I witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nation’s heroes’ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.”

Pfeiffer told me that he did not write that statement, and emailed me a series of denials. Regarding Trump’s “fucking Mexican” comment, Pfeiffer wrote: “President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.” He provided statements from Patel and a spokesman for Meadows, who denied having heard Trump make the statement. Via Pfeiffer, Meadows’s spokesman also denied that Trump had ordered Meadows not to pay for the funeral.

The statement from Patel that Pfeiffer sent me said: “As someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring ‘in the line of duty,’ which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance.”

The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the Guillén funeral—contempt, rage, parsimony, racism—hardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” (“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”)

A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, told me that Trump does not comprehend such traditional military virtues as honor and self-sacrifice. “The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes,” McCaffrey said. “It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.”

I’ve been interested in Trump’s understanding of military affairs for nearly a decade. At first, it was cognitive dissonance that drew me to the subject—according to my previous understanding of American political physics, Trump’s disparagement of the military, and in particular his obsessive criticism of the war record of the late Senator John McCain, should have profoundly alienated Republican voters, if not Americans generally. And in part my interest grew from the absolute novelty of Trump’s thinking. This country had never seen, to the best of my knowledge, a national political figure who insulted veterans, wounded warriors, and the fallen with metronomic regularity.

Today—two weeks before an election that could see Trump return to the White House—I’m most interested in his evident desire to wield military power, and power over the military, in the manner of Hitler and other dictators.

Trump’s singularly corrosive approach to military tradition was in evidence as recently as August, when he described the Medal of Honor, the nation’s top award for heroism and selflessness in combat, as inferior to the Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to civilians for career achievement. During a campaign speech, he described Medal of Honor recipients as “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” prompting the Veterans of Foreign Wars to issue a condemnation: “These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” Later in August, Trump caused controversy by violating federal regulations prohibiting the politicization of military cemeteries, after a campaign visit to Arlington in which he gave a smiling thumbs-up while standing behind gravestones of fallen American soldiers.

His Medal of Honor comments are of a piece with his expressed desire to receive a Purple Heart without being wounded. He has also equated business success to battlefield heroism. In the summer of 2016, Khizr Khan, the father of a 27-year-old Army captain who had been killed in Iraq, told the Democratic National Convention that Trump has “sacrificed nothing.” In response, Trump disparaged the Khan family and said, “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures.”

One former Trump-administration Cabinet secretary told me of a conversation he’d had with Trump during his time in office about the Vietnam War. Trump famously escaped the draft by claiming that his feet were afflicted with bone spurs. (“I had a doctor that gave me a letter—a very strong letter on the heels,” Trump told The New York Times in 2016.) Once, when the subject of aging Vietnam veterans came up in conversation, Trump offered this observation to the Cabinet official: “Vietnam would have been a waste of time for me. Only suckers went to Vietnam.”

In 1997, Trump told the radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” This was not the only time Trump has compared his sexual exploits and political challenges to military service. Last year, at a speech before a group of New York Republicans, while discussing the fallout from the release of the Access Hollywood tape, he said, “I went onto that (debate) stage just a few days later and a general, who’s a fantastic general, actually said to me, ‘Sir, I’ve been on the battlefield. Men have gone down on my left and on my right. I stood on hills where soldiers were killed. But I believe the bravest thing I’ve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened.’” I asked Trump-campaign officials to provide the name of the general who allegedly said this. Pfeiffer, the campaign spokesman, said, “This is a true story and there is no good reason to give the name of an honorable man to The Atlantic so you can smear him.”

In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported that Trump asked John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as “my generals.”) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded.

This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of “German generals,” Kelly responded by asking, “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” He went on: “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.” Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.

Baker and Glasser also reported that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feared that Trump’s “‘Hitler-like’ embrace of the big lie about the election would prompt the president to seek out a ‘Reichstag moment.’”

Kelly—a retired Marine general who, as a young man, had volunteered to serve in Vietnam despite actually suffering from bone spurs—said in an interview for the CNN reporter Jim Sciutto’s book, The Return of Great Powers, that Trump praised aspects of Hitler’s leadership. “He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” Kelly recalled. “I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, (Hitler) rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world.” Kelly admonished Trump: “I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

This wasn’t the only time Kelly felt compelled to instruct Trump on military history. In 2018, Trump asked Kelly to explain who “the good guys” were in World War I. Kelly responded by explaining a simple rule: Presidents should, as a matter of politics and policy, remember that the “good guys” in any given conflict are the countries allied with the United States. Despite Trump’s lack of historical knowledge, he has been on record as saying that he knew more than his generals about warfare. He told 60 Minutes in 2018 that he knew more about NATO than James Mattis, his secretary of defense at the time, a retired four-star Marine general who had served as a NATO official. Trump also said, on a separate occasion, that it was he, not Mattis, who had “captured” the Islamic State.

As president, Trump evinced extreme sensitivity to criticism from retired flag officers; at one point, he proposed calling back to active duty Admiral William McRaven and General Stanley McChrystal, two highly regarded Special Operations leaders who had become critical of Trump, so that they could be court-martialed. Esper, who was the defense secretary at the time, wrote in his memoir that he and Milley talked Trump out of the plan. (Asked about criticism from McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Trump responded by calling him a “Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer” and said, “Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?”)

Trump has responded incredulously when told that American military personnel swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. According to the New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt’s recent book, Donald Trump v. the United States, Trump asked Kelly, “Do you really believe you’re not loyal to me?” Kelly answered, “I’m certainly part of the administration, but my ultimate loyalty is to the rule of law.” Trump also publicly floated the idea of “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep himself in power.

On separate occasions in 2020, Trump held private conversations in the White House with national-security officials about the George Floyd protests. “The Chinese generals would know what to do,” he said, according to former officials who described the conversations to me, referring to the leaders of the People’s Liberation Army, which carried out the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. (Pfeiffer denied that Trump said this.) Trump’s desire to deploy U.S. troops against American citizens is well documented. During the nerve-racking period of social unrest following Floyd’s death, Trump asked Milley and Esper, a West Point graduate and former infantry officer, if the Army could shoot protesters. “Trump seemed unable to think straight and calmly,” Esper wrote in his memoir. “The protests and violence had him so enraged that he was willing to send in active-duty forces to put down the protesters. Worse yet, he suggested we shoot them. I wondered about his sense of history, of propriety, and of his oath to the Constitution.” Esper told National Public Radio in 2022, “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at General Milley, and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’” When defense officials argued against Trump’s desire, the president screamed, according to witnesses, “You are all fucking losers!”

Trump has often expressed his esteem for the type of power wielded by such autocrats as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his admiration, even jealousy, of Vladimir Putin is well known. In recent days, he has signaled that, should he win reelection in November, he would like to govern in the manner of these dictators—he has said explicitly that he would like to be a dictator for a day on his first day back in the White House—and he has threatened to, among other things, unleash the military on “radical-left lunatics.” (One of his four former national security advisers, John Bolton, wrote in his memoir, “It is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.”)

Military leaders have condemned Trump for possessing autocratic tendencies. At his retirement ceremony last year, Milley said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator … We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.” Over the past several years, Milley has privately told several interlocutors that he believed Trump to be a fascist. Many other leaders have also been shocked by Trump’s desire for revenge against his domestic critics. At the height of the Floyd protests, Mattis wrote, “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

Trump’s frustration with American military leaders led him to disparage them regularly. In their book A Very Stable Genius, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, both of The Washington Post, reported that in 2017, during a meeting at the Pentagon, Trump screamed at a group of generals: “I wouldn’t go to war with you people. You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.” And in his book Rage, Bob Woodward reported that Trump complained that “my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”

Trump’s disdain for American military officers is motivated in part by their willingness to accept low salaries. Once, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, Trump said to aides, “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” (On another occasion, John Kelly asked Trump to guess Dunford’s annual salary. The president’s answer: $5 million. Dunford’s actual salary was less than $200,000.)

Trump has often expressed his love for the trappings of martial power, demanding of his aides that they stage the sort of armor-heavy parades foreign to American tradition. Civilian aides and generals alike pushed back. In one instance, Air Force General Paul Selva, who was then serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president that he had been partially raised in Portugal, which, he explained, “was a dictatorship—and parades were about showing the people who had the guns. In America, we don’t do that. It’s not who we are.”

For Republicans in 2012, it was John McCain who served as a model of “who we are.” But by 2015, the party had shifted. In July of that year, Trump, then one of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, made a statement that should have ended his campaign. At a forum for Christian conservatives in Iowa, Trump said of McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

It was an astonishing statement, and an introduction to the wider public of Trump’s uniquely corrosive view of McCain, and of his aberrant understanding of the nature of American military heroism. This wasn’t the first time Trump had insulted McCain’s war record. As early as 1999, he was insulting McCain. In an interview with Dan Rather that year, Trump asked, “Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure.” (A brief primer: McCain, who had flown 22 combat missions before being shot down over Hanoi, was tortured almost continuously by his Communist captors, and turned down repeated offers to be released early, insisting that prisoners be released in the order that they’d been captured. McCain suffered physically from his injuries until his death, in 2018.) McCain partisans believe, with justification, that Trump’s loathing was prompted in part by McCain’s ability to see through Trump. “John didn’t respect him, and Trump knew that,” Mark Salter, McCain’s longtime aide and co-author, told me. “John McCain had a code. Trump only has grievances and impulses and appetites. In the deep recesses of his man-child soul, he knew that McCain and his achievements made him look like a mutt.”

Trump, those who have worked for him say, is unable to understand the military norm that one does not leave fellow soldiers behind on the battlefield. As president, Trump told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action. To him, they could be left behind, because they had performed poorly by getting captured.

My reporting during Trump’s term in office led me to publish on this site, in September 2020, an article about Trump’s attitudes toward McCain and other veterans, and his views about the ideal of national service itself. The story was based on interviews with multiple sources who had firsthand exposure to Trump and his views. In that piece, I detailed numerous instances of Trump insulting soldiers, flag officers and veterans alike. I wrote extensively about Trump’s reaction to McCain’s death in August 2018: The president told aides, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he was infuriated when he saw flags at the White House lowered to half-mast. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” he said angrily. Only when Kelly told Trump that he would get “killed in the press” for showing such disrespect did the president relent. In the article, I also reported that Trump had disparaged President George H. W. Bush, a World War II naval aviator, for getting shot down by the Japanese. Two witnesses told me that Trump said, “I don’t get it. Getting shot down makes you a loser.” (Bush ultimately evaded capture, but eight other fliers were caught and executed by the Japanese).

The next year, White House officials demanded that the Navy keep the U.S.S. John S. McCain, which was named for McCain’s father and grandfather—both esteemed admirals—out of Trump’s sight during a visit to Japan. The Navy did not comply.

Trump’s preoccupation with McCain has not abated. In January, Trump condemned McCain—six years after his death—for having supported President Barack Obama’s health-care plan. “We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare,” Trump told an Iowa crowd. “Obamacare is a catastrophe. Nobody talks about it. You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done. John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day. Remember?” This was, it appears, a malicious reference to McCain’s wartime injuries—including injuries suffered during torture—which limited his upper-body mobility.

I’ve also previously reported on Trump’s 2017 Memorial Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, accompanied him. The two men visited Section 60, the 14-acre section that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars (and the site of Trump’s Arlington controversy earlier this year). Kelly’s son Robert, a Marine officer killed in 2010 in Afghanistan, is buried in Section 60. Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” At first, Kelly believed that Trump was making a reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand nontransactional life choices. I quoted one of Kelly’s friends, a fellow retired four-star general, who said of Trump, “He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself. He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker.” At moments when Kelly was feeling particularly frustrated by Trump, he would leave the White House and cross the Potomac to visit his son’s grave, in part to remind himself about the nature of full-measure sacrifice.

Last year Kelly told me, in reference to Mark Milley’s 44 years in uniform, “The president couldn’t fathom people who served their nation honorably.”

The specific incident I reported in the 2020 article that gained the most attention also provided the story with its headline—“Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers.’” The story concerned a visit Trump made to France in 2018, during which the president called Americans buried in a World War I cemetery “losers.” He said, in the presence of aides, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” At another moment during this trip, he referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who had lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for dying for their country.

Trump had already been scheduled to visit one cemetery, and he did not understand why his team was scheduling a second cemetery visit, especially considering that the rain would be hard on his hair. “Why two cemeteries?” Trump asked. “What the fuck?” Kelly subsequently canceled the second visit, and attended a ceremony there himself with General Dunford and their wives.

The article sparked great controversy, and provoked an irate reaction from the Trump administration, and from Trump himself. In tweets, statements, and press conferences in the days, weeks, and years that followed, Trump labeled The Atlantic a “second-rate magazine,” a “failing magazine,” a “terrible magazine,” and a “third-rate magazine that’s not going to be in business much longer”; he also referred to me as a “con man,” among other things. Trump has continued these attacks recently, calling me a “horrible, radical-left lunatic named Goldberg” at a rally this summer.

In the days after my original article was published, both the Associated Press and, notably, Fox News, confirmed the story, causing Trump to demand that Fox fire Jennifer Griffin, its experienced and well-regarded defense reporter. A statement issued by Alyssa Farah, a White House spokesperson, soon after publication read, “This report is false. President Trump holds the military in the highest regard.”

Shortly after the story appeared, Farah asked numerous White House officials if they had heard Trump refer to veterans and war dead as suckers or losers. She reported publicly that none of the officials she asked had heard him use these terms. Eventually, Farah came out in opposition to Trump. She wrote on X last year that she’d asked the president if my story was true. “Trump told me it was false. That was a lie.”

When I spoke to Farah, who is now known as Alyssa Farah Griffin, this week, she said, “I understood that people were skeptical about the ‘suckers and losers’ story, and I was in the White House pushing back against it. But he said this to John Kelly’s face, and I fundamentally, absolutely believe that John Kelly is an honorable man who served our country and who loves and respects our troops. I’ve heard Donald Trump speak in a dehumanizing way about so many groups. After working for him in 2020 and hearing his continuous attacks on service members since that time, including my former boss General Mark Milley, I firmly and unequivocally believe General Kelly’s account.”

(Pfeiffer, the Trump spokesperson, said, in response, “Alyssa is a scorned former employee now lying in her pursuit to chase liberal adulation. President Trump would never insult our nation’s heroes.”)

Last year, I published a story in this magazine about Milley that coincided with the end of his four-year term. In it, I detailed his tumultuous relationship with Trump. Milley had resisted Trump’s autocratic urges, and also argued against his many thoughtless and impetuous national-security impulses. Shortly after that story appeared, Trump publicly suggested that Milley be executed for treason. This astonishing statement caused John Kelly to speak publicly about Trump and his relationship to the military. Kelly, who had previously called Trump “the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,” told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump had referred to American prisoners of war as “suckers” and described as “losers” soldiers who died while fighting for their country.

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly asked. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family—for all Gold Star families—on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

When we spoke this week, Kelly told me, “President Trump used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of our country. There are many, many people who have heard him say these things. The visit to France wasn’t the first time he said this.”

Kelly and others have taken special note of the revulsion Trump feels in the presence of wounded veterans. After Trump attended a Bastille Day parade in France, he told Kelly and others that he would like to stage his own parade in Washington, but without the presence of wounded veterans. “I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”

Milley also witnessed Trump’s disdain for the wounded. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing “God Bless America” at his installation ceremony in 2019. Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an improvised-explosive-device attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. Avila is considered a hero up and down the ranks of the Army.

It had rained earlier on the day of the ceremony, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila’s wheelchair almost toppled over. Milley’s wife, Holly­anne, ran to help Avila, as did then–Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila’s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.” Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley.

An equally serious challenge to Milley’s sense of duty came in the form of Trump’s ignorance of the rules of war. In November 2019, Trump intervened in three different brutality cases then being adjudicated by the military. In the most infamous case, the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty of posing with the corpse of an ISIS member. Though Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, witnesses testified that he’d stabbed the prisoner in the neck with a hunting knife. In a highly unusual move, Trump reversed the Navy’s decision to demote him. A junior Army officer named Clint Lorance was also the recipient of Trump’s sympathy. Trump pardoned Lorance, who had been convicted of ordering the shooting of three unarmed Afghans, two of whom died. And in a third case, a Green Beret named Mathew Golsteyn was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan he thought was a Taliban bomb maker. “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state,” Trump said at a Florida rally.

In the Gallagher case, Trump intervened to allow Gallagher to keep his Trident insignia, one of the most coveted insignia in the entire U.S. military. The Navy’s leadership found this intervention particularly offensive because tradition held that only a commanding officer or a group of SEALs on a Trident Review Board were supposed to decide who merited being a SEAL. Milley tried to convince Trump that his intrusion was hurting Navy morale. They were flying from Washington to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, to attend a “dignified transfer,” a repatriation ceremony for fallen service members, when Milley tried to explain to Trump the damage that his interventions were doing.

In my story, I reported that Milley said, “Mr. President, you have to understand that the SEALs are a tribe within a larger tribe, the Navy. And it’s up to them to figure out what to do with Gallagher. You don’t want to intervene. This is up to the tribe. They have their own rules that they follow.”

Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn’t understand why he was being punished.

“Because he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,” Milley said.

“The guy was going to die anyway,” Trump said.

Milley answered, “Mr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can’t do that kind of thing. It’s a war crime.” Trump said he didn’t understand “the big deal.” He went on, “You guys”—meaning combat soldiers—“are all just killers. What’s the difference?”

Milley then summoned one of his aides, a combat-veteran SEAL officer, to the president’s Air Force One office. Milley took hold of the Trident pin on the SEAL’s chest and asked him to describe its importance. The aide explained to Trump that, by tradition, only SEALs can decide, based on assessments of competence and character, whether one of their own should lose his pin. But the president’s mind was not changed. Gallagher kept his pin.

One day, in the first year of Trump’s presidency, I had lunch with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, in his White House office. I turned the discussion, as soon as I could, to the subject of his father-in-law’s character. I mentioned one of Trump’s recent outbursts and told Kushner that, in my opinion, the president’s behavior was damaging to the country. I cited, as I tend to do, what is in my view Trump’s original sin: his mockery of John McCain’s heroism.

This is where our conversation got strange, and noteworthy. Kushner answered in a way that made it seem as though he agreed with me. “No one can go as low as the president,” he said. “You shouldn’t even try.”

I found this baffling for a moment. But then I understood: Kushner wasn’t insulting his father-in-law. He was paying him a compliment. In Trump’s mind, traditional values—values including those embraced by the armed forces of the United States having to do with honor, self-sacrifice, and integrity—have no merit, no relevance, and no meaning."

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic:

In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.

Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. With Guillén’s mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene. In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to Guillén’s mother. “I saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,” Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: “If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that,” he said. “I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”

Natalie Khawam, the family’s attorney, responded, “I think the military will be paying—taking care of it.” Trump replied, “Good. They’ll do a military. That’s good. If you need help, I’ll help you out.” Later, a reporter covering the meeting asked Trump, “Have you offered to do that for other families before?” Trump responded, “I have. I have. Personally. I have to do it personally. I can’t do it through government.” The reporter then asked: “So you’ve written checks to help for other families before this?” Trump turned to the family, still present, and said, “I have, I have, because some families need help … Maybe you don’t need help, from a financial standpoint. I have no idea what—I just think it’s a horrific thing that happened. And if you did need help, I’m going to—I’ll be there to help you.” A public memorial service was held in Houston two weeks after the White House meeting. It was followed by a private funeral and burial in a local cemetery, attended by, among others, the mayor of Houston and the city’s police chief. Highways were shut down, and mourners lined the streets.

Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous “leadership failures” at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the base’s commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder “shocked our conscience” and “forced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.” According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthy’s comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.

In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, “Mark Esper has been terminated”), was in attendance, along with Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?” According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.” Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston.

Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra Guillén, Vanessa’s sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. “I am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,” the statement reads. “I witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nation’s heroes’ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.”

Pfeiffer told me that he did not write that statement, and emailed me a series of denials. Regarding Trump’s “fucking Mexican” comment, Pfeiffer wrote: “President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.” He provided statements from Patel and a spokesman for Meadows, who denied having heard Trump make the statement. Via Pfeiffer, Meadows’s spokesman also denied that Trump had ordered Meadows not to pay for the funeral. The statement from Patel that Pfeiffer sent me said: “As someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring ‘in the line of duty,’ which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance.”

The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the Guillén funeral—contempt, rage, parsimony, racism—hardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” (“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”) A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.

[...] Trump has often expressed his esteem for the type of power wielded by such autocrats as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his admiration, even jealousy, of Vladimir Putin is well known. In recent days, he has signaled that, should he win reelection in November, he would like to govern in the manner of these dictators—he has said explicitly that he would like to be a dictator for a day on his first day back in the White House—and he has threatened to, among other things, unleash the military on “radical-left lunatics.” (One of his four former national security advisers, John Bolton, wrote in his memoir, “It is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.”)

Military leaders have condemned Trump for possessing autocratic tendencies. At his retirement ceremony last year, Milley said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator … We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.” Over the past several years, Milley has privately told several interlocutors that he believed Trump to be a fascist. Many other leaders have also been shocked by Trump’s desire for revenge against his domestic critics. At the height of the Floyd protests, Mattis wrote, “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

Trump’s frustration with American military leaders led him to disparage them regularly. In their book A Very Stable Genius, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, both of The Washington Post, reported that in 2017, during a meeting at the Pentagon, Trump screamed at a group of generals: “I wouldn’t go to war with you people. You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.” And in his book Rage, Bob Woodward reported that Trump complained that “my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”

Trump’s disdain for American military officers is motivated in part by their willingness to accept low salaries. Once, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, Trump said to aides, “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” (On another occasion, John Kelly asked Trump to guess Dunford’s annual salary. The president’s answer: $5 million. Dunford’s actual salary was less than $200,000.) Trump has often expressed his love for the trappings of martial power, demanding of his aides that they stage the sort of armor-heavy parades foreign to American tradition. Civilian aides and generals alike pushed back. In one instance, Air Force General Paul Selva, who was then serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president that he had been partially raised in Portugal, which, he explained, “was a dictatorship—and parades were about showing the people who had the guns. In America, we don’t do that. It’s not who we are.”

The Atlantic released the story of Donald Trump musing about having the same kind of generals that Hitler had and complained about paying $60,000 for “a fucking Mexican”’s funeral (Vanessa Guillén).

This man is a sick monster devoid of any empathy.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Wanted ‘Hitler’s Generals,’ Former Chief Of Staff Says

Daily Kos: Latest Trump bombshell—and Hitler praise—will make your jaw drop

Read the full story at The Atlantic.

[petervintonjr]

"We, the people. It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that 'We, the people.' I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in We, the people. Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution." --from Barbara Jordan's opening remarks to the House Judiciary Committee on July 24, 1974, regarding the impeachment of Richard Nixon

Today, June 1, kicks off Pride Month (and also incidentally marks the third anniversary of the start of this series), and I thought it appropriate to examine the amazing accomplishments of Texas civil rights leader, attorney, and Congresswoman Barbara Charline Jordan.

Born in a poor Houston neighborhood in 1936, Jordan discovered an early aptitude for languages and oration, and also debate. She graduated from Texas Southern University in 1956, then obtained her LL.B. from Boston University School of Law in 1959. She was admitted to both the Massachusetts and Texas bars in 1960, then began practicing law in Houston --at the time only the third African American woman to be so licensed. An outspoken supporter of John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, she herself entered politics and unsuccessfully ran for state representative in 1962 and again in 1964. Two years later her fortunes changed, however, and in 1966 she became the first African American elected to the Texas Senate in 1966.

Jordan's standing as a fellow Texan Democrat endeared her to then-President Lyndon Johnson and in many respects she became LBJ's protégée. In 1972 Jordan ran for Congress for Texas's 18th District, and unseated the incumbent Republican, becoming the first woman --of any race-- elected to Congress from that state.

Jordan's political career accomplishments extend far beyond this biography's available space, but among the high points include her aggressive sponsorship of the Voting Rights Act of 1975 (an extension of the more famous 1965 measure), and the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977. Also significantly she served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment hearings, and her speech at the 1976 Democratic National Convention is widely regarded as one of the best keynote speeches in modern history; her presence in many ways even eclipsing that of the party's nominee, Jimmy Carter. (She would return as a keynote speaker for the 1992 Democratic National Convention.)

Jordan retired from politics in 1978 and became a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1993 Jordan was the first recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. A year later she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton for her trailblazing work. That same year Jordan was also named the chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. Jordan died from complications from pneumonia in January of 1996, and is buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin --significantly breaking barriers even in death as the first-ever black woman to be interred there. While Jordan never explicitly acknowledged her personal sexual orientation in public, she was open about her life partner of nearly 30 years, educational psychologist Nancy Earl.

Her legacy continues through the Jordan Rustin Coalition (named for her and for Civil Rights organizer Bayard Rustin --see Lesson #05 in this series): a non-profit advocacy group working to empower Black same-gender loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and families; and to promote equal marriage rights and to advocate for fair treatment of everyone without regard to race, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Full text of Jordan's July 24, 1974 remarks: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/impeachment/my-faith-constitution-whole-it-complete-it-total

A truly absorbing 1976 article about Jordan's life and career by William Broyles, indexed at: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-making-of-barbara-jordan-2/

[theborderlessworld]

Donald Trump Has Promised a Closed Border and Mass Deportations. Those Affected Are Taking Action Now

Immigrants, their employers and groups that work with them are already taking action ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, in which he has promised to deport millions of people.

Some fear how the new administration could impact their families, while others are hopeful the plans — if they materialize — will make things better.

Trump allies are discussing deportation and detention options, with tackling the US-Mexico border seen as a priority from Day 1. And removing undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes is likely to be an early focus, a source familiar with the team’s preliminary plans told CNN.

But advocates fear deportation plans will soon reach deeper into American communities, targeting people who they say have a right to live here.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, is securing money and lawyers to fight what it is already calling potential “vicious, malevolent, cruel and ruthless” immigration policies.

“Make no mistake: Mass deportations will harm the millions targeted by Donald Trump, the families and communities they are part of — and every person in our country. They will rip parents from their children, destroy businesses and livelihoods, and devastate the fabric of our nation and our economy,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of LULAC.

A lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union says its planning for legal challenges is already well advanced.

“We have been preparing for a second Trump term for nearly a year, with a focus on the most draconian possible policies, including the threat to use the military for deportation, which is flatly illegal,” said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who argued many of the most high-profile cases during Trump’s first term.

The National Immigrant Justice Center said its lawyers were ready, too.

“We will continue our work of providing critical legal representation to immigrants and refugees, fighting to keep families together, defending access to asylum, and advocating for the end of arbitrary detention and unjust deportation,” Mary Meg McCarthy, the center’s executive director, said in a statement.

‘What happens now?’

Cesar Espinosa, a leader in Houston’s Hispanic community, said he’s had many calls and messages from worried people since Trump won reelection early Wednesday.

“We can feel the sense of uncertainty from a lot of people. A lot of people are asking, ‘What happens now? What do we do?’” he said.

Some are in so-called mixed status families made up of US citizens and undocumented immigrants. And the fear is that non citizens will be targeted immediately, said Espinosa, who is a legal permanent resident, or “green card” holder.

He says he tries to calm fears by saying that mass deportations, particularly of non-criminals, will take time. Meanwhile, he keeps count of the time when he can apply for US naturalization, still more than two years away.

Espinosa said machismo among Latino men may have contributed to support for Trump.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people in the Latino community have bought into the rhetoric of being anti-immigrant, even the immigrants themselves,” he said.

Jorge Rivas’ support for Trump is obvious. He features a MAGA burger on the menu at Sammy’s Mexican Grill, in Catalina, Arizona, north of Tucson, the restaurant he runs with his wife, Betty.

Rivas, born in El Salvador, was granted asylum at age 17, he says, and sees little connection between his life as an immigrant and those at the top of Trump’s potential deportation list.

“If they let in hundreds or thousands of people who already have criminal records, if deporting them creates a mass deportation, I’m all for it,” he said.

He does not think the action will extend to law-abiding workers.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “They need to make sure that they don’t throw away, they don’t kick out, they don’t deport people that are family oriented.”

Advocates mobilize

In California, where farmers are reliant on migrant labor, there is a renewed call for immigration reform to allow people into the US for temporary agricultural work. There are also calls for legal status for the current workforce.

“We must focus on easing the chronic employee shortages on California farms and ranches and reducing the barriers to employment,” California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass said in a statement to CNN.

In the urban heart of New York City, where thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have stretched local resources, some houses of worship are preparing to shift their missions.

“The faith community has been mobilized for more than two and a half years in kind of an emergency capacity,” said the Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York, a religiously diverse non-profit agency. “The challenge was not specifically deportation, as it is now, the challenge was the feeding, the housing and the welcome of enormous numbers of people.”

She said there was a biweekly call of about 60 churches, mosques and synagogues involved in welcoming migrants that could be pivoted. “That’s the network that will be mobilized when it comes to fighting any sort of more extreme measures such as deportation.”

A day after the election, New York City officials said fear was premature when they addressed immigration and how they would work with the incoming Trump administration.

The city has sanctuary laws that prevent local authorities from contacting federal immigration officers if they come across a migrant without permission to be in the US. Some in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration have said they want the laws amended to not include those who commit violent crimes, but for now any city-federal cooperation is limited.

“We’re working with all of the agencies that interact with immigrant communities to make sure that they understand what our sanctuary laws are and what they are expected to follow,” said Manuel Castro, the mayor’s commissioner for immigrant affairs. While the laws are in place, he said, anxiety and fear for immigrant communities is rooted in misinformation and even hate crimes.

But Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, warned that sanctuary laws won’t stop federal immigration agencies from doing what they want.

“Sanctuary laws don’t stop federal agencies. They just don’t allow the city and state to participate,” Awawdeh said. “They’ve never been a firewall.”

Federal enforcement

Officials in US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, are not commenting on any potential new policies or preparations. Both would be central to any deportation plan, but top leadership will not change until the second Trump administration begins its work on January 20.

At both the northern and southern borders, apprehensions of those who have crossed illegally continue to be low in 2024, with a seven-day average of 1,700 a day, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the government data. The busiest sector was San Diego, with 350 people detained on Tuesday.

At some points in December 2023, migrant apprehensions exceeded 10,000 per day on the US southern border.

The day after the election, Jim Desmond, a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, posted a picture of himself and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the border wall, saying he was looking forward to securing it. Earlier this year, Desmond testified before Congress that federal policies had meant “our Border Patrol has been reduced to processing agents, standing by, watching people break our laws.”

Kenia Zamarripa, of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said many local businesses had ties across the border with companies, operations and workers and that an efficient and secure border should still facilitate trade and travel.

“It’s not just manufacturing, it’s not just tourism or retail, these are high-paying jobs and skilled workers that our businesses need to thrive,” she told CNN.

The tone was more defiant in Los Angeles, where the University of Southern California estimated last year there were more than 800,000 undocumented immigrants in LA county. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNN: “The immigrant community is the heart of our city and in the face of threats and fear, Los Angeles will stand together. No one should live in fear due to their immigration status. We will continue to support local and state policies that protect immigrants and provide vital resources.”

She added: “My message is simple: No matter where you were born, how you came to this country, Los Angeles will stand with you and this will not change.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District — the second largest in the nation behind New York City — said it was bracing for a potential threat of legal action against students and their families that could lead to separation or deportation. It added that it would not enter into agreements with government agencies for the enforcement of federal immigration law unless required by law.

“Immigration enforcement activities around schools create hardships and barriers to health and educational attainment and cultivate a pervasive climate of fear, conflict, and stress that affects all students in our district, regardless of their background or immigration status,” a spokesperson for the district said in a statement sent to CNN.

Across the border from San Diego in Tijuana, Mexico, about 3,400 people are waiting in migrant shelters, according to Jose Luis Perez Canchola, the city’s migration affairs director.

Many are hoping to enter the US legally using the CBP ONE app run by DHS to get an immigration appointment, but there are fears that the app could be impacted, he said.

“In the event of a mass cancellation of appointments and closing CBP ONE, what may happen is that many will decide to illegally cross the border before January 2025,” Perez Canchola said.

There is also concern in Piedras Negras, the Mexican city across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas. “There’s fear and trepidation,” said Sister Isabel Turcios, director of the Frontera Digna shelter, where migrants were also using CBP ONE to get an appointment with an immigration officer.

“I try to calm them because the anxiety they’re feeling is very great,” she said.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/11/us/closed-border-trump-immigration-deportation/index.html

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