Deportation of American Children Encapsulates Cruelty and High Costs of Trump’s Mass Deportation Obsessions

Read new America’s Voice fact sheet on high costs of mass deportation HERE; Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC — As America’s Voice has been detailing in the ongoing, “At What Cost?” campaign, the Trump administration’s obsession with anti-immigrant policies comes at a high cost for the American people. In a new fact sheet released today, we detail four categories of the high costs to the American people: high costs to Americans health and retirement security; high costs to the economy; high costs to Americans’ safety and security and high costs to our values and freedoms. The fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days Of Trump’s Immigration Agenda,” is detailed below.

Yet the cruelty, costs, and staggeringly misplaced priorities detailed in the new fact sheet about the first 100 Days are also captured in a development from just these past few days. This weekend, the Washington Post filed, “Three U.S. citizens, ages 2, 4 and 7, swiftly deported from Louisiana,” which opened with the following sentence:

“Three U.S. citizen children from two different families were deported with their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the early hours of Friday morning. One of them is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was deported without medication or the ability to contact their doctors, the family’s lawyer said.”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Let this sink in: our government is deporting American kids, including kids with cancer, and is now trying to defend and excuse their choices on national television. Their actions embody the cruelty, chaotic, and harmful nature of their agenda the past 100 Days, and what they want from the next 100 Weeks and beyond and exemplifies how Americans are paying a high price for the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant and mass deportation obsessions.

As Americans see the cruelty and overreach in action, a growing majority is expressing disapproval, connecting it to broader concerns regarding the rule of law, the tanking economy, cuts to Americans’ healthcare, and overall chaos and extremism. We’re better than this.”

Among the categories detailed in the new fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days Of Trump’s Immigration Agenda,” include:

• Costs to Americans’ Health and Retirement Security: to pay for a ramped-up ICE and immigration enforcement budget, Congress is ready to slash $880 billion from Medicaid and $230 million from food assistance that U.S. citizens rely on.

• Costs to the U.S. Economy: If President Trump proceeds with mass deportation removing millions of construction, hospitality, and agriculture workers, it could reduce the GDP by an estimated $1.7 trillion.

• Costs to Americans’ Safety and Security: The Trump administration has diverted DHS and FBI resources away from investigating violent criminals and fentanyl traffickers to focus on detaining and deporting long-settled, taxpaying, and productive members of our communities who have been in the U.S. for decades.
• Costs to Americans’ Values and Freedoms: from detaining and arresting U.S. citizens to ignoring due process and the separation of powers, this administration’s immigration agenda is taking aim at core democratic principles for all Americans.

America’s Voice Content: 100 Days of Trump

• Read through the new America’s Voice fact sheet, “High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days of Trump’s Immigration Agenda”

• Read the America’s Voice memo, “100 Days Roundup: The Current Polling and Politics of Immigration”
• Check out the America’s Voice website repository on 100 Days of Trump, featuring a digital toolkit, social media graphics, blogs, memos, and fact sheets: https://americasvoice.org/high-costs-no-benefits/

Be on the lookout for more America’s Voice content assessing the first 100 days of the Trump administration.