We should expect a fence that gets marketed as “a wall.” And Trump has already rolled back his campaign line about making Mexico pay for it, conceding that the United States will pay for the barrier and ask Mexico to reimburse its neighbor for part of the cost. Good luck with that, amigo.
We should expect the swift removal of many of the estimated 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants who are designated as “criminals,” but—down the line—also expect a Nixon goes to China-type plan to give millions of undocumented immigrants legal status but not citizenship, for fear that they might use the right to vote to punish Republicans for their behavior.
Lastly, we should expect Trump to scrap DACA but also create a new program under a different name that does much the same thing—that is, allow recipients to register with the government, avoid deportation, and get a temporary work permit.
I predict that the idea of deporting undocumented young people who only know one country as their own—this one—when those young people did nothing wrong because they were brought here by their parents will be a bridge too far for Trump. He has never said specifically that he wants to do this, only that those who are here without authorization should have to leave.
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