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WASHINGTON - Talk of bipartisan immigration reform is growing again on Capitol Hill, even as President Trump is set to push his border wall and a crackdown on sanctuary cities.

Leading the way is a not-so-familiar face, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Hes been talking with fellow lawmakers about an overhaul, among them Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Miami.

There is a great deal of anxiety among our immigrant communities, especially in South Florida, Curbelo said Wednesday. After so many years of heated debate, it's time for Congress to come together and produce results. Senator Tillis is working with both parties to try and build a broad proposal that will tighten border security and enforce our immigration laws, while also providing certainty and relief for immigrants who have been contributing to our country's economy. I applaud his effort to build consensus on a solution and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this issue.

Tillis plan includes tougher security and enforcement but also legal status for millions of undocumented residents.

For Democrats, this may be one issue where theyre as tired as I am of seeing the parades and not getting to the game, Tillis told the Wall Street Journal.

Tillis was elected in 2014, after the failed Gang of 8 bill died. An author of that legislation, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, is keeping a distance from the talks.

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Rep. Carlos Curbelo joining immigration reform effort - Tampabay.com (blog)

Lawmakers fear Trump could use the information Dreamers provide on their DACA applications to deport them. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

Judith Jimenez was already house hunting when Donald Trump won the presidential election. She decided to buy a house anyway.Now she risks losing it if President Donald Trump reverses Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.(Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)

Judith Jimenez was already house hunting when Donald Trump won the presidential election in November. She decided to go ahead and buy anyway.

Nowshe risks losing the house, and everything else she has worked for, if President Donald Trump reverses Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.

"It would definitely put a stop to our dreams, for now," saidJimenez, 35, a Phoenix resident whose parents brought her from Mexico City to the U.S. when she was 11."But I guess we would do what all immigrants have done throughout history, which is try to survive."

Surviving won't be easy.

Ending Obama's immigration actionswould revoke work permits and deportation deferments forJimenez and more than 752,000other young peopleapproved for Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.That means Jimenez would no longer be able to work legally in the U.S.

If that happens, Jimenez, adental assistant, said it will be a huge struggle to afford the $830 monthly mortgage payment on the $144,000 house she bought at the end of November for her and her 12-year-old son.

MORE:In-state tuition for 'dreamers' under fire in Arizona Court of Appeals

After being on a waiting list for nearly two years, Jimenez said she was recentlyaccepted to enroll in the dental hygienist program at Phoenix College. But if she loses her work permit, she said she likely also won't be able to afford the tuition, not only because shewon't be able to earn a living legally, but also because she would no longer qualify for in-state tuition under Arizona law.

On top of that, she would have to worry againabout being deported back to Mexico, even though she grew up in the U.S.

Losing deferred action "would just mess up everything," she said.

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Trump hadpromised to roll back many of Obama's executive actions on his first day in office, including the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump has called the program unconstitutional, and critics have labeled it a form of amnesty.

Trump was sworn in as president on Friday. It's possible he could direct his administration to end the program anytime.

He would have two options for ending the program, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University.

The least bureaucratic and most lenient would allow people who have received work permits through the program to use them until the permitsexpire and not let them renew them, he said.

Or he could end the program immediately. But under immigration regulations, that would likely require sending termination noticesto all 752,000 people who have received work permits through DACA and giving them 15 days to reply, he said.

"It would take some time to implement whatever decision President Trump takes," Yale-Loehr said.

It would definitely put a stop to our dreams, for now. But I guess we would do what all immigrants have done throughout history, which is try to survive.

In anticipation of losing their work permits, some "dreamers" are trying to saveas much money as they can. Others are looking into going into business for themselves. Still others are looking into moving to Canada, or another country where they will be able to continue their careers. Many also said they would have to resort to finding jobs with employers willing to pay them off the books.

Advocacy groups plan to pressure Trump to keep the program, and are planning protests if it ends.

"I know that the only way personally to move our community forward is to speak up and continue telling our stories," said Juan Escalante, 27, who has deferred action. He is digital campaigns manager at America's Voice, a national organization that pushes for comprehensive immigration reform. "We are not going into hiding."

Eliminating the program would help satisfy supporters who voted forTrumpbecause of hiscampaign promise to bring back American jobs and crack downon illegal immigration.

At the same time, he could further alienate many Latinos already turned off by Trump's campaign comments about Mexicans and undocumented immigrants, as well asAmericans who sympathize with the plight of so-called dreamers who came to the U.S. through no fault of their own and for all intents and purposes are Americans.

Asurvey of 1,308 peoplewith work permits through the DACA program found their hourly wages increased 42 percent, which translated to higher income tax contributions, which benefits all Americans, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Through higher wages, people with work permits through DACA have been able to buy cars, homes, and start new businesses, which increases tax revenue to cities and states, the center said. Eliminating the program would "wipe away" $433.4 billion from the U.S. gross domestic product cumulatively over 10 years, the center calculated in a separate study.

In his Time "Person of the Year" interviewpublished in December, Trump showed some sympathy for dreamers, saying,"Were going to work something out thats going to make people happy and proud."

"They got brought here at a very young age, theyve worked here, theyve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And theyre in never-never land because they dont know whats going to happen, Trump told Time.

RELATED: Sen. Jeff Flake bill would 'dreamer' extension to enforcement

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus toldFox News Sunday that Trump may hold off on ending the deferments. "I think were going to work with House and Senate leadership as well to get a long-term solution on that issue," he said.

In anticipation of Trump ending the DACA program, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have introduced a bill that unlikeObama's executive action would protect dreamers from deportation through legislation passed by Congress. Like DACA,the billwould provide temporary relief from deportation and work permits to undocumented immigrants who qualify.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., meanwhile, has unveiled his own bill to extenddeportation protections to dreamers, coupled with tighterenforcement for immigrants who commit majorcrimes. Flake thinks his bill would have a better shot at getting through the Republican-controlled Congress.

Obama's administration created the programin June2012 as he was ramping up his campaign to run for a second term as president, saying the policy was needed because Congress had failed to pass comprehensive immigration reforms addressing what to do about the nation's 11.3 million undocumented immigrants.

President Donald Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, signs his first executive order on health care Friday in the Oval Office. Dreamers are worried about Trump undoing former President Obama's deportation deferment.(Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press)

Through September, 752,154 people nationally have been approved for the program, and of those, 588,151 have been approved for two-year renewals,according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In Arizona, 27,211 people have been approved for the program, the sixth-highest number of any state behind California(216,060), Texas(120,642), Illinois(41,256), New York(38,340)and Florida(30,364), according to USCIS.

Members of the Ramos family posed for a portrait outside their home in Memphis shortly before the parents' departure in 2015. From left, front: Isaias Ramos, Cristina Vargas and Dustin Ramos. Back row, from left: Mario Ramos and Dennis Ramos.(Photo: Daniel Connolly/Memphis Commercial Appeal)

Dennis Ramos, a 26-year-old house painter and remodeler in Memphis, Tenn.,said he's seriously considering moving out of the country with his younger brothers, possibly to Canada, if Trump ends DACA.He and his 22-year-old brother are covered under the DACA program, while the youngest brother, 13, is a U.S. citizen.

"I think that's a very likely possibility and that would mean we will become undocumented again," Ramostold the USA Today Network in an interview also published byPublic Radio International. "And that would mean life would get harder again."

They're particularly interested in Canada because it's a developed country. They could transport their vehicles and equipment overland. And Ramoshad also seen discussion on Facebook about Canada's recent decision to lift its visa requirement for Mexicans, making it easier for them to enter the country.

Their immigrant parents returned to Hidalgo state in Mexico on their own in 2015 for personal reasons. If the brothersearned legal status in Canada, they could travel easily to Mexico to visit their parents, something that's hard for them to do today without special permission.

In a worst-case scenario, the government would come after them, he said.

"We have ideas and we have dreams, and they're not likely to happen anytime soon in this country. So now we're looking at our options. Whether it's here, or in Europe, or even back in Mexico."

Genesis Egurrola, 23, a Phoenix resident, works as a legal assistant, earning money to take classes at Phoenix College. Her family brought her from Nogales, Sonora to the U.S. when she was 4.(Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)

With her work permit, Genesis Egurrola, 23, a Phoenix resident, works as a legal assistant, earning money to take classes at Phoenix College. Her family brought her from Nogales, Sonora, to the U.S. when she was 4. She eventually wants to attend law school but that goal would be derailed if Trump ends the program, she said.

"I would probably lose my chance to work and go to school," Egurrola said.

After Trump was elected in November, Juan Rodriguez, a 24-year-oldMesa resident, began saving as much money as he can in case Trump ends the DACA program.

We have ideas and we have dreams, and they're not likely to happen anytime soon in this country. So now we're looking at our options.

At the time, he was considering buying a house and had even been approved for a mortgage, but decided it would not be a good idea to take on more debt. He already has a $400-a-month car payment on the 2013 Charger he bought with money he earns as afraud analyst for a payment processing company. .

"I knew that it would have been a risk if Trump won," said Rodriguez, who also studiescriminal justice at Mesa Community College. "He promised that he would get rid of DACA, and if he did that, I would have a tough time. It would mean that I would lose my job and I wouldnt be financially stable any more."

After being approved for DACA in December2012, Alely Ponce-Moreno, a 22-year-old Mesa resident, got a job asa restaurant hostess, and then later at two different call centers. A graduate of Dobson High School in Mesa, she has lived in the U.S. since she was 4 months old, when her parents brought her to the U.S. from the state ofCoahuila in Mexico.

With the money she earns working full time, she is able to cover tuition, which is about $10,000 a semester, at Grand Canyon University.

She plans to graduate with a bachelor's degree in business in April.

If Trump ends the program, she plans to earn as much money as she can before her work permit expires so she can finish her degree.

"I would put in as much overtime as I could. Also, I would try and get another job to accumulate as much money as I could," she said.

She is exploring the possibility of using her degree and opening her own business to earn money, if she loses her work permit.

Jimenez, 35, works as a dental assistant and was recently accepted to enroll in a dental hygienist program at Phoenix College. If DACA is reversed, she won't be able to work legally in the U.S.(Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic)

Jimenez, the Phoenix resident who bought a house in November, said she knew she was taking a risk after Trump won the election. Hillary Clinton had promised to keep Obama's immigration action in place and even expand them.

But she decided to buy the house anyway.

"Our lives have to continue," she said. "We cant just stop and see what is going to happen."

MORE: Phoenix Union High School District:We support DACA students, 'dreamers'

If Trump ends the DACA program, she said she will probably try find a job somewhere that allows her to work illegally without a permit.

That won't be easy in a state like Arizona, where employers are required to use E-Verify, afederal online electronic program, to check the employment status of every workerthey hire. But sheguesses many other dreamerswill do the same.

"We find ways to work but its not fun," she said. "You just take any job you can. You cant complain. You cant really look for something you like to do or want to do. You look for something to surviveto pay your bills."

Daniel Connolly, a reporter at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, contributed to this article.

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How 'dreamers' are preparing in case Donald Trump ends Obama immigration actions - AZCentral.com

Activists display signs at an immigration reform rally in Portland, Oregon, on March 4, 2006. (Photo: Sam Grover)

Where do you turn for news and analysis you can rely on? If the answer is Truthout, then please support our mission by making a tax-deductible donation!

"People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." -- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852

While the government officials developing and enforcing U.S. immigration policy changed on January 20, the economic system in which they make that policy did not. As fear sweeps through immigrant communities in the United States, understanding that system helps us anticipate what a Trump administration can and can't do in regard to immigrants, and what immigrants themselves can do about it.

Over the terms of the last three presidents, the most visible and threatening aspect of immigration policy has been the drastic increase in enforcement. President Bill Clinton presented anti-immigrant bills as compromises, and presided over the first big increase in border enforcement. George W. Bush used soft rhetoric, but sent immigration agents in military-style uniforms, carrying AK-47s, into workplaces to arrest workers, while threatening to fire millions for not having papers. Under President Barack Obama, a new requirement mandated filling 34,000 beds in detention centers every night. The detention system mushroomed, and over 2 million people were deported.

Enforcement, however, doesn't exist for its own sake. It plays a role in a larger system that serves capitalist economic interests by supplying a labor force employers require. High levels of enforcement also ensure the profits of companies that manage detention and enforcement, who lobby for deportations as hard as Boeing lobbies for the military budget.

Immigrant labor is more vital to many industries than it's ever been before. Immigrants have always made up most of the country's farm workers in the West and Southwest. Today, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 57% of the country's entire agricultural workforce is undocumented. But the list of other industries dependent on immigrant labor is long -- meatpacking, some construction trades, building services, healthcare, restaurant and retail service, and more.

During the election campaign, candidate Donald Trump pledged in his "100-day action plan to Make America Great Again" to "begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country" on his first day in office. In speeches, he further promised to eventually force all undocumented people (estimated at 11 million) to leave.

In a society with one of the world's highest rates of incarceration, crimes are often defined very broadly. In the past, for instance, under President George W. Bush federal prosecutors charged workers with felonies for giving a false Social Security number to an employer when being hired. He further proposed the complete enforcement of employer sanctions -- the provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that forbids employers from hiring workers without papers. Bush's order would have had the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) check the immigration status of all workers, and required employers to fire those without legal immigration status, before being blocked by a suit filed by unions and civil rights organizations.

Under President Obama, workplace enforcement was further systematized. In just one year, 2012, ICE audited 1600 employers. Tens of thousands of workers were fired during Obama's eight years in office. Given Trump's choice of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, greater workplace enforcement is extremely likely. Sessions has been one of the strongest advocates in Congress for greater immigration enforcement, and has criticized President Obama for not deporting enough people. Last year he proposed a five-year prison sentence for any undocumented immigrant caught in the country after having been previously deported.

Industry Needs Immigrants

Both deportations and workplace firings face a basic obstacle -- the immigrant workforce is a source of immense profit to employers. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that, of the presumed 11 million people in the country without documents, about 8 million are employed (comprising over 5% of all workers). Most earn close to the minimum wage (some far less), and are clustered in low-wage industries. In the Indigenous Farm Worker Survey, for instance, made in 2009, demographer Rick Mines found that a third of California's 165,000 indigenous agricultural laborers (workers from communities in Mexico speaking languages that pre-date European colonization) made less than minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage is still stuck at $7.50/hour, and even California's minimum of $10/hour only gives full-time workers an annual income of $20,000. Meanwhile, Social Security says the national average wage index for 2015 is just over $48,000. In other words, if employers were paying the undocumented workforce the average U.S. wage it would cost them well over $200 billion annually. That wage differential subsidizes whole industries like agriculture and food processing. If that workforce were withdrawn, as Trump threatens, through deportations or mass firings, employers wouldn't be able to replace it without raising wages drastically.

As president, Donald Trump will have to ensure that the labor needs of employers are met, at a price they want to pay. The corporate appointees in his administration reveal that any populist rhetoric about going against big business was just that -- rhetoric. But Hillary Clinton would have faced the same necessity. And in fact, the immigration reform proposals in Congress from both Republicans and Democrats over the past decade shared this understanding -- that U.S. immigration policy must satisfy corporate labor demands.

During the Congressional debates over immigration reform, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposed two goals for U.S. immigration policy. In a report from the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, Senior Fellow Edward Alden stated, "We should reform the legal immigration system so that it operates more efficiently, responds more accurately to labor market needs, and enhances U.S. competitiveness." He went on to add, "We should restore the integrity of immigration laws, through an enforcement regime that strongly discourages employers and employees from operating outside that legal system." The CFR, therefore, coupled an enforcement regime -- with deportations and firings -- to a labor-supply scheme.

This framework assumes the flow of migrating people will continue, and seeks to manage it. This is a safe assumption, because the basic causes of that flow have not changed. Communities in Mexico continue to be displaced by 1) economic reforms that allowed U.S. corporations to flood the country with cheap corn and meat (often selling below the cost of production -- known as "dumping" -- thanks to U.S. agricultural subsidies and trade agreements like NAFTA), 2) the rapacious development of mining and other extractive concessions in the countryside, and 3) the growing impoverishment of Mexican workers. Violence plays its part, linked to the consequences of displacement, economic desperation, and mass deportations. Continuing U.S. military intervention in Central America and other developing countries will produce further waves of refugees.

While candidate Trump railed against NAFTA in order to get votes (as did Barack Obama), he cannot -- and, given his ties to business, has no will to -- change the basic relationship between the United States and Mexico and Central America, or other developing countries that are the sources of migration. Changing the relationship (with its impact on displacement and migration) is possible in a government committed to radical reform. Bernie Sanders might have done this. Other voices in Congress have advocated it. But Trump will do what the system wants him to do, and certainly will not implement a program of radical reform.

H-2A Guest Workers

The structures for managing the flow of migrants are already in place, and don't require Congress to pass big immigration reform bills. In Washington State alone, for instance, according to Alex Galarza of the Northwest Justice Project, the Washington Farm Labor Association brought in about 2,000 workers under the H-2A guest worker program in 2006. In 2013, the number rose to 4,000. By 2015, it grew to 11,000. In 2016, it reached 16,000. That kind of growth is taking place in all states with a sizeable agricultural workforce. The H-2A program allows growers to recruit workers outside the country for periods of less than a year, after which they must return to their country of origin. Guest workers who lose their jobs for whatever reason -- whether by offending their employer, or not working fast enough, for example -- have to leave the country, so joining a union or protesting conditions is extremely risky. Growers can only use the program if they can show they can't find local workers, but the requirement is often unenforced.

The program for foreign contract labor in agriculture is only one of several like it for other industries. One study, "Visas, Inc.," by Global Workers Justice, found that over 900,000 workers were brought to the United States to work every year under similar conditions. The number is growing. In the context of the growth of these programs, immigration enforcement fulfills an important function. It heralds a return to the bracero era, named for the U.S. "guest worker" program that brought millions of Mexican farmworkers to the United States between 1942 and 1964. The program was notorious for its abuse of the braceros, and for pitting them against workers already in the United States in labor competition and labor conflict. In 1954 alone, the United States deported over a million people -- while importing 450,000 contract workers. Historically, immigration enforcement has been tied to the growth of contract labor, or "guest worker" programs.

Arresting people at the border, firing them from their jobs for not having papers, and sending people to detention centers for deportation, all push the flow of migrants into labor schemes managed to benefit corporations. The more a Trump administration pushes for deportations and internal enforcement, the more it will rely on expanding guest worker programs.

The areas where programs like H-2A are already growing were heavy Trump supporters. In eastern Washington, a heavily Trump area, immigration agents forced the huge Gebbers apple ranch to fire hundreds of undocumented workers in 2009, and then helped the employer apply for H-2A workers. While the undocumented workers of eastern Washington had good reason to fear Trump's threats, employers knew they didn't have to fear the loss of a low-wage workforce.

Deportations and workplace enforcement will have a big impact on unions and organizing rights. Immigrant workers have been the backbone of some of the most successful labor organizing of the last two decades, from Los Angeles janitors to Las Vegas hotel workers to Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. At the same time, the use of the E-Verify database under President Obama often targeted workers active in labor campaigns like Fight for $15, as did earlier Bush and Clinton enforcement efforts.

Unions and immigrant communities have developed sophisticated tactics for resisting these attacks, and will have to use them effectively under Trump. Janitors in Minneapolis fought the firing of undocumented fast-food workers in Chipotle restaurants. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) teamed up with faith-based activists, immigrant-rights groups, and environmentalists to stop firings of undocumented workers in Bay Area recycling facilities, winning union representation and higher wages as a result. The same unions and community organizations that have fought enforcement in the workplace have also fought detentions and deportations.

These efforts will have to depend on more than a legal defense. The Supreme Court has already held that undocumented workers fired for organizing at work can't be rehired, and their employers don't have to pay them back pay.

Border Enforcement

Trump's threatened enforcement wave extends far beyond the workplace. He promised increased enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border, expanding the border wall, and increasing the number of Border Patrol agents beyond the current 25,000. Immigration enforcement already costs the government more than all other federal law enforcement programs put together.

Trump proposed an End Illegal Immigration Act, imposing a two-year prison sentence on anyone who re-enters the U.S. after having been deported, and five years for anyone deported more than once. Under President Obama, the United States deported more than two million people. Hundreds of thousands, with children and families in the United States, have tried to return to them. Under this proposed law, they would fill the prisons.

One of Trump's "first day" commitments is to "cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama." This promise includes Obama's executive order giving limited, temporary legal status to undocumented youth brought to the United States by their parents (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA). DACA has been attacked by the right-wing ideologues advising Trump's transition team since Obama issued his order.

The 750,000 young people who gained status under DACA -- the "Dreamers" -- have been one of the most active sections of the U.S. immigrant-rights movement. But they had to give the government their address and contact information in order to obtain a deferment, making them vulnerable to deportation sweeps. Defending them will likely be one of the first battles of the Trump era.

Trump further announced that on his first day in office he will "cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities." More than 300 cities in the United States have adopted policies saying that they will not arrest and prosecute people solely for being undocumented.

Many cities, and even some states, have withdrawn from federal schemes, notably the infamous "287(g) program," requiring police to arrest and detain people because of their immigration status. Trump's proposed order would cancel federal funding for housing, medical care, and other social services to cities that won't cooperate. As attorney general, Sessions can be expected to try to enforce this demand. After the election, many city governments and elected officials were quick to announce that they would not be intimidated. The Dreamers especially see direct action in the streets as an important part of defending communities. In the push for DACA, youth demonstrations around the country sought to stop deportations by sitting in front of buses carrying prisoners to detention centers. Dreamers defended young people detained for deportation, and even occupied Obama's Chicago office during his 2012 re-election campaign.

In detention centers themselves, detainees have organized hunger strikes with the support of activists camping in front of the gates. Maru Mora Villapando, one of the organizers of the hunger strikes and protests at the detention center in Tacoma, Wash., says organizers cannot just wait for Trump to begin his attacks, but have to start building up defense efforts immediately.

The success of efforts to defend immigrants, especially undocumented people, depends not just on their own determination to take direct action, but on support from the broader community. In Philadelphia, less than a week after the election, Javier Flores Garca was given sanctuary by the congregation of the Arch Street United Methodist Church after being threatened by federal immigration agents. "Solidarity is our protection," urged the Reverend Deborah Lee of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in California. "Our best defense is an organized community committed to each other and bound together with all those at risk. ... We ask faith communities to consider declaring themselves 'sanctuary congregations' or 'immigrant welcoming congregations.'"

But while many workers may have supported Trump because of anger over unemployment and the fallout from trade agreements like NAFTA, they also bought his anti-immigrant political arguments. Those arguments, especially about immigrants in the workplace, even affect people on the left who opposed Trump himself. Some of those arguments have been made by Democrats, and used to justify enforcement measures like E-Verify included in "comprehensive immigration reform" bills. One union activist, Buzz Malone, wrote a piece for In These Times arguing for increased enforcement of employer sanctions, although he envisioned them more as harsher penalties for employers who hire the undocumented. "Imprison the employers ... and all of it would end," he predicted. "The border crossings would fizzle out and many of the people would leave on their own."

What Is to Be Done?

To defeat the Trump enforcement wave, immigrant activists in unions and communities will have to fight for deeper understanding and greater unity between immigrants and U.S.-born people. Workers in general need to see that people in Mexico got hit by NAFTA even harder than people in the U.S. Midwest -- and their displacement and migration isn't likely to end soon. In a diverse workforce, the unity needed to defend a union or simply win better conditions depends on fighting for a country and workplace where everyone has equal rights. For immigrant workers, the most basic right is simply the right to stay. Defending that right means not looking the other way when a coworker, a neighbor or a friend is threatened with firing, deportation, or worse.

The rise of a Trump enforcement wave spells the death of the liberal centrism that proposed trading increased enforcement and labor supply programs for a limited legalization of undocumented people. Under Trump, the illusion that there is some kind of "fair" enforcement of employer sanctions and "smart border enforcement" will be stripped away. Sessions will have no interest in "humane detention," with codes of conduct for the private corporations running detention centers. The idea of guest worker programs that don't exploit immigrants or set them against workers already in the United States will face the reality of an administration bent on giving employers what they want.

So in one way the Trump administration presents an opportunity as well -- to fight for the goals immigrant rights advocates have historically proposed, to counter inequality, economic exploitation, and the denial of rights. As Sergio Sosa, director of the Heartland Workers Center in Omaha, Nebr., puts it, "we have to go back to the social teachings our movement is based on -- to the idea of justice."

SOURCES: "Donald Trump's Contract with the American Voter" (donaldjtrump.com); Chico Harlan, "The private prison industry was crashing -- until Donald Trump's victory," Wonkblog, Washington Post, Nov. 10, 2016 (washingtonpost.com); U.S. Immigration and Customs Envorcement, "Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act" (ice.gov); Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (im4humanintegrity.org); Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, "End the Quota" (endisolation.org); Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel, and D'Vera Cohn, "Five facts about illegal immigration in the U.S.," Pew Research Center, Nov. 3, 2016 (pewresearch.org); Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Foreign-Born Workers: Labor Force Characteristics, 2016," May 19, 2016 (bls.gov); Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova, "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States," Migration Information Service, April 14, 2016 (migrationpolicy.org); "Selected Statistics on Farmworkers," Farmworker Justice, 2014 (farmworkerjustice.org); "Indigenous Mexicans in California Agriculture," Indigenous Farmworker Study (indigenousfarmworkers.org); "U.S. Immigration Policy Task Force Report," Council on Foreign Relations, August 2009 (cfr.org); "Visas, Inc.: Corporate Control and Policy Incoherence in the U.S. Temporary Foreign Labor System," Global Workers Justice Alliance, May 31, 2012 (globalworkers.org); "H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (uscis.gov); Buzz Malone, "Stop Blaming Immigrants and Start Punishing the Employers Who Exploit Them," Working In These Times (blog), Nov. 15, 2016 (inthesetimes.com); David Bacon, Illegal People (Beacon Press, 2008); David Bacon, The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013); David Bacon, author interviews with Alex Galarza, Maru Mora Villapando, Deborah Lee, and Sergio Sosa (2016); Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2004); Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C. Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA (University of Toronto Press, 2010).

Original post:
What Trump Can and Can't Do to Immigrants - Truth-Out

Wall Street Journal

Trump Poised to Wield Executive Power to Make Immigration Changes Wall Street Journal Under current law, President Trump will have wide leeway and broad authority to enforce U.S. immigration laws, said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates lower legal and illegal immigration levels.

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Trump Poised to Wield Executive Power to Make Immigration Changes - Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who last week marked a national week of prayer and education on immigration issues, hope the new Trump administration will work with them on comprehensive immigration reform.

"We especially are very much concerned about keeping families together, and at the same time realizing, yes, that there is an importance to respect the laws of this nation as well as to provide security on the borders but never to lose that human face of the reality of what is going on," Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, said. "We're hoping the new administration will work with us to create equitable laws, keeping in mind the dignity of human refugees."

Vasquez, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration, spoke to media on a conference call Jan. 12.

The bishops' conference observed National Migration Week Jan. 8-14 to raise awareness of how immigrants and refugees have contributed to the Catholic church, and the difficulties they, along with children and victims and survivors of human trafficking, face daily.

The bishops have not taken a formal stance on President Donald Trump's proposed border wall. Vasquez said the bishops are currently more concerned about supporting legislation that would continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which would allow qualified undocumented individuals who immigrated to the United States as minors to defer deployment for a period of two years.

At a prayer service three nights after the election, Archbishop Jos Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the bishops' conference, gave a homily about increasing uncertainty and fear among immigrants in the United States. During a teleconference with journalists on Jan. 12, Gomez said he thinks that fear still exists today.

"That's why this National Migration Week is so important," Gomez said. "I know that many dioceses have been present for their people, and I think that the conference of bishops can be present for the people and give the sense of peace and we are together."

This year's theme for National Migration Week was "Creating a Culture of Encounter," in reference to Pope Francis stressing the significance of encounter in Christianity in his first homily for Pentecost as pope in 2013: "For me, this word is very important. Encounter with others. Why? Because faith is an encounter with Jesus, and we must do what Jesus does: encounter others."

The U.S. bishops' website says migrants are not treated as fellow children of God worthy of support like they should.

Vasquez thinks National Migration Week is a great opportunity to highlight Matthew 25:35-40: " 'For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me' And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.' "

In addition to establishing communication within the incoming administration, the bishops are looking to engage at the local and state levels by working with local communities and dioceses. The conference has also been working to build coalitions on border control with other faith-based communities, including Jewish and Muslim groups.

"Violence, gang, warfare and some of them are also survivors of human trafficking. It's important that we hear those voices," Vasquez said. "These are people; they have real realities that are going on in their lives. It's important to see them not as problems but as persons. We have to have a heart of compassion to be willing to help strangers."

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, among the 65.3 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, 21.3 million of them are refugees, half of whom are under the age of 18. Approximately 34,000 people are forcibly displaced every day. Twelve percent of those displaced people settle in the Americas.

[Shireen Korkzan is an NCR Bertelsen intern. Her email address is skorkazn@ncronline.org.]

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