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From its very first moments, this country was a nation of immigrants. In fact, Native Americans aside, what could the first settlers in North America, no less the "first" Americans, have been but immigrants? And who in this country can't trace his or her roots somewhere in the past, recent or distant, to immigrants? My own grandfather was born in what's now Ukraine and, after many adventures, arrived in this country from Germany in the early 1890s with the equivalent of 50 cents in his pocket. Donald Trump's grandfather, "a 16-year-old German barber, bought a one-way ticket for America, escaping three years of compulsory German military service. He had been a sickly child, unsuited to hard labor, and feared the effects of the draft. It might have been illegal, but America didn't care about this law-breaking -- at that time, Germans were seen as highly desirable migrants -- and Trump was welcomed with open arms."
Had Donald Trump been president back then, it seems that he would, in essence, have tossed his own grandfather out of the country. Of course, this is the man who, running for office in 2024, threatened to "carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." This is the man who, once again president, has labeled the present immigration situation "an invasion of our country" and has threatened to declare a national emergency, using the National Guard and the military to handle mass deportations of "illegal" immigrants and -- before he's done -- who knows who else. "On Day One," as he put it, "I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out." (Of course, Defense Department officials have already privately called such a program "unrealistic and unserious," or simply "insanity," but who cares about their opinions? Not Donald Trump, that's for sure.)
But here's something that neither our next president nor anyone else I know of has even suggested: that our military forces are, in their own strange way, migrants (and, if you think about it, given this country's grim Global War on Terror, in much of the world distinctly illegal ones at that). With that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino who, as a military spouse, has seen the migrant life of American forces in an up-close-and-personal fashion, introduce you to the other "migrants" in America. Tom
American Troops as Migrants
Or Launching a War on America Itself
This country, once a haven for immigrants, is now on the verge of turning into a first-class nightmare for them. President Donald Trump often speaks of his plan to deport some 11.7 million undocumented immigrants from the United States as "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." Depending on how closely he follows the Project 2025 policy blueprint of his allies, his administration may also begin deporting the family members of migrants and asylum seekers in vast numbers.
Among the possible ways such planning may not work out, here's one thing Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA crowd don't recognize: the troops they plan to rely on to carry out the deportations of potentially millions of people are, in their own way, also migrants. After all, on average, they move from place to place every two and a half years -- more if you count the rapid post-9/11 deployments and the Global War on Terror that followed, often separating families multiple times during each soldier's tour of duty.
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen know what it means to be out of place in a new community or in a country not their own. President Trump and his crew are counting on our armed forces being able to live with forcibly taking people from their homes and separating families right here in the United States, an experience that many of them are all too familiar with. As a military spouse myself, I wonder how amenable they will be to the kinds of orders many Americans can already see coming their way.
An Uncertain Future
Donald Trump's goals have been outlined in countless campaign speeches, rallies, and press conferences, as well as in Project 2025. According to Tara Watson and Jonathon Zars of the Brookings Institution, his administration could, in fact, do a number of different things when it comes to immigrants. One possibility would be to launch a series of high-profile mass deportation events in which the military would collaborate with federal, state, and local law enforcement, instead of leaving such tasks to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agencies typically responsible for managing migration. To do so, the federal government would have to expand its powers over local and state jurisdictions, including by imposing stiff penalties on sanctuary cities, where local officials have been instructed not to inquire about people's immigration status or implement federal deportation orders.
Watson and Zars assume that the policies of the second Trump administration will impact a number of other vulnerable groups as well. For example, about four to five million people with temporary parole status (TPS) or a notice to appear in immigration court are seeking asylum, having fled political persecution or humanitarian disasters in their home countries. Millions of them would (at least theoretically) have to return to the situations they fled because the new administration may not grant their petitions. It could even try to repeal TPS for the approximately 850,000 individuals who already have it.
It might also reinstitute the "remain in Mexico" policy last in place in 2019, which required Central and South Americans requesting asylum to wait on the Mexican side of our southern border -- a measure the Biden administration repealed due to significant safety concerns. Also at risk would be the two-year grace period granted to approximately half a million people from war-torn or politically unstable countries like Haiti, Ukraine, and Venezuela, while new people would probably no longer be admitted under that program and asylum might be denied to those caught up in this country's backlogged immigration courts.
Additionally, President Trump could try again to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a protected status that now covers more than half a million young people who came to this country as kids. His administration would also undoubtedly slow-walk legal paths to immigration, like the granting of student and work visas to people from China, and could institute policies that would make it ever more difficult for immigrants to access services like Medicaid and public education. His divisive rhetoric around immigrants, calling them "vermin" who are "poisoning the blood of this country," has already created a climate of fear for many migrants.
A Merging of Powers
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