Standoff in the States: local leaders react to Trump's anti-immigration agenda

Progressives gear up to challenge the president’s mass deportation plan. 

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As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to enforce sweeping changes to border policy, including stricter restrictions and mass deportations, progressive leaders across the country are pushing back against his anti-immigration agenda.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that in his second term, he will declare a national emergency over undocumented immigrants entering the United States and will seek to deploy the military to enforce his policy. In response, numerous state leaders and immigration rights organizations have condemned the move, working to secure legal and institutional barriers against the determination of the Trump administration.  

“[Trump’s] plan to deport millions of people a year and severely restrict legal immigration will violate key legal protections — including our right to due process,” Omar Jadwat, the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights director, wrote in June. “He will make xenophobia and racism the touchstones of American immigration policy.”

Trump announced the appointment of several hard-line immigration officials to his administration — including former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan, who will serve as the administration’s “Border Czar,” a position that does not require Senate confirmation, according to the New York Times. 

Over the past three decades Homan has worked in law enforcement and border patrol — playing an instrumental role in Trump’s controversial family separation policy in 2017. 

“I’ll run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen,” Homan said at the National Conservatism Conference earlier this year. 

Trump also nominated Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller led the campaign to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, stating the administration plans to increase the amount of deportations to one million per year. 

The American Immigration Council estimated that arresting, detaining, processing and deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants annually would cost $88 billion dollars.

In addition to utilizing the National Guard, Homan issued a warning Nov. 19 that law enforcement agencies and cities that fail to comply with the jurisdiction of ICE agents in the deportation process will face federal prosecution. As a result, various elected officials are fighting the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, voiced his opposition to using military force to assist with deportations, calling the move “uncalled for” and suggesting it “may, in fact, be unconstitutional and illegal” in a press conference WHEN?. 

Partnering with Gov. Jared Polis, another Democrat representing Colorado, the two organized the Governors Safeguarding Democracy initiative — a coalition of Democratic governors attempting to protect their states from Trump’s policy agenda.

During a special session, Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., met with several state lawmakers on Monday to discuss safeguarding California’s progressive policies on a range of issues, including immigration — proposing to set aside $25 million in legal fees to support the efforts according to Newsom. 

In the past month, several Democratic mayors have clashed with Homan, sparking back-and-forths online with the so-called border czar in regards to federal immigration enforcement.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnson made national headlines by suggesting he’d instruct Denver police at the city's border to confront the National Guard in retaliation to Trump’s military threats. Homan responded to the Democrat’s claims by threatening to jail the governor for breaking immigration law. 

Finally, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu acknowledged the city would also refuse to assist the federal government in the deportation efforts — citing a decade-old policy — unless criminal warrants had been issued. Homan and Wu also got into a back-and-forth after he responded to Wu’s statements, calling her “not very smart,” during an interview with Newsmax. 

“These policies have no place in a democracy that protects or respects civil liberties and the rule of law,” Jadwat wrote. “From the courts to the halls of Congress, we will use every tool at our disposal, including litigation, to defend the rights of immigrants and protect all members of our communities from the widespread damage these policies would cause.”