Thousands of African immigrants in the United States who are undocumented are anxious about their fate as Donald Trump wins the US elections.
The Republican candidate who is returning to the white house after his 2020 defeat has obtained 50.08 % of valid votes with 278 seats as at Thursday morning.
The Democratic candidate has 47.5% of valid votes from 223 seats. Immigration is one of the major issues for the 2024 American polls with Trump vowing to deport over one million illegal immigrants.
In 2022, around 13,000 African migrants were recorded at the US-Mexico border, according to US Customs and Border protection data. By 2023, this figure had quadrupled to 58,000 because of fleeing war, persecution and poverty.
Reports say Kenyan immigrants who number about 160,000 are worried that they will face discrimination with Trump as president.
But what are the costs?
Experts have warned that the mass Deportations agenda have legal, political and financial implications.
Immigration advocates have warned that there are significant human cost of as families will be torn apart following raids in communities and workplaces across the US.
According to the Department of Homeland Security and Pew Research there are around 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US, a number that has remained relatively stable since 2005.
“It’s much easier for Ice to pick someone up from a jail if local law enforcement co-operates, instead of having to go look for them,” said. Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
“There are many others who would not co-operate with a Trump mass deportation plan,” she said. “That makes it so much harder.”
Legally, the move could also face some setbacks as some immigration and human rights activists head to court to challenge it.
Experts estimate that the total bill for one million or more deportations would run into tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars.
Adam Isacson, a migration and border expert from the Washington Office on Latin America, said that “nightmarish images” of mass deportations could also cost a potential Trump administration politically from a public relations standpoint.
“Every community in the US would see people they know and love put on buses,” Mr Isacson said.
“You’d have some very painful images on TV of crying children, and families,” he added. “All of that is incredibly bad press. It’s family separation, but on steroids.”
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Source: Africafeeds.com
