Trump Has Become Kinder to the Children of Illegal Immigrants

In a conversation with a correspondent from the Spanish language channel Telemundo, the president of the U.S. declared that he is ready to grant citizenship to the children of immigrants from Mexico and Central America who are in the country illegally. Moreover, Donald Trump said he is ready to prepare such an order within a month. However, even more recently at a meeting with white voters, he promised to deport all immigrants in the United States illegally (approximately 700,000), including their children, to places as far away from the United States as possible.

Let’s remember that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, signed an order creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, under which children who came to the United States with their parents illegally were granted the right to education and work. This program also had a number of controversial issues. For example, some of the children of immigrants in the U.S. illegally turned 30 to 40 years old during their undocumented life in America. In any case, DACA was recognized at the state level, and hundreds of thousands of young foreign people are in the United States illegally. At the same time, the federal government has turned a blind eye to this fact for political and economic reasons.

All of the children immigrants in the U.S. illegally are known as “Dreamers.* Living and working in the U.S. illegally for many years, they hope to receive American citizenship because, they say they have never seen or known any other country than the United States. From a political point of view, they are all potential Democratic Party supporters, and if they were to become American citizens, they could easily secure the votes for a Democratic victory in a number of so-called swing states.

Now Trump, who canceled the DACA program with a prior order, has suddenly promised the children of immigrants here illegally a direct path to American citizenship. Why would he do that? The goal of such generosity for immigrants is to win the support of Spanish-speaking voters. It must be said that immigrants from Latin America living illegally in the United States, which, according to the most conservative estimates, numbers approximately 18 million people and 90% of all illegal immigrants, have greeted the president's statement with great enthusiasm. According to recent polls, 20% of Latino citizens in the U.S. who, until a few days ago, believed the American president was a racist and an enemy to all Latinos, have already united to vote for Trump.

Curiously, Trump’s statement drew sharp criticism from his opponents in the Democratic Party. In their opinion, the current U.S. president is an enemy to all Spanish-speaking Americans. Representatives of the country’s leading pro-immigrant organization write off the president’s promises saying no one should believe a single word he says, that he will still deceive people, and that U.S. citizenship must be available to all immigrants in the U.S. without documentation.

Trump was also criticized by fellow Republicans, one of whom, Ted Cruz, called granting American citizenship to immigrants in the U.S. illegally immoral and a betrayal of the interests of Republican voters. At the same time, both hard-line critics and those who naively believe the president are clearly not considering some fairly obvious nuances in Trump’s proposals. Yes, Trump can promise something to someone, but his orders are in effect only as long as he is in office. As soon as he leaves the White House, all previous executive orders could be canceled. (In just the first two weeks of his presidency, Trump canceled more than 500 of his predecessor’s orders.) The "path to citizenship" promise is more than vague and unclear. After all, the "path" itself can take decades, and there are obstacles to achieving that goal that can be imposed in such a way that could deter even the most patient immigrant from pursuing citizenship.

Meanwhile, in many ways, the purely populist idea of promising citizenship to the children of immigrants in one's country illegally is not only actively discussed in the United States, but also very relevant for Russia. After all, according to the most conservative estimates, there are about 10 million immigrants in our country illegally (mainly from the Commonwealth of Independent States), whose children not only can become Russian citizens, but who also may have a significant impact on the domestic political life of their new homeland in coming years.

*Editor’s note: Immigrants who would benefit from the DREAM Act (which has not been passed by Congress) or DACA are referred to as “Dreamers.”