What does the second Trump inauguration mean for mass deportations?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just hours before President Trump’s second term begins, many immigrants face uncertainty. Trump has pledged to use law enforcement, the military, and federal agencies for mass deportations, along with ending birthright citizenship, and reversing outgoing president Joe Biden’s border policies. What does this mean for immigrants who’ve built a life in the US?
In this episode:
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Maribel Hernandez Rivera, Director of Policy and Government Affairs, Border and Immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Amy Walters, Sonia Bhagat, and Sarí el-Khalili with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Hagir Saleh, Marcos Bartolomé, Melanie Marich, Hanah Shokeir, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten.
The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Spencer Cline, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Soltan, and Amy Walters. Our editorial interns are Melanie Marich, Hagir Saleh, and Hanah Shokeir. Our guest host is Kevin Hirten. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:08.1 | Hi, Kevin Hurtan here. |
| 0:10.3 | Maliga Bilal is on parental leave, and I will be filling in for a while. |
| 0:14.6 | So here's the show. |
| 0:20.7 | Today, as Trump takes power hours from now, immigrant families in the U.S. |
| 0:25.4 | brace for potentially seismic shocks. |
| 0:27.6 | We're going to end up with the largest deportation in American history. |
| 0:32.6 | We have no choice. |
| 0:36.6 | What will happen to the millions of undocumented immigrants and their families in the United States? |
| 0:44.1 | I'm Kevin Horton, and this is the take. |
| 0:53.9 | Hi, Kevin. My name is Maribel Hernandez-. I am coming to you from the Bronx, New York, |
| 0:59.0 | and I'm the director of government and policy affairs for the ACLU for border and immigration. |
| 1:05.1 | Well, thank you, Marabelle. It's a very relevant job title on this day, the day of the inauguration. |
| 1:13.8 | So welcome to the take. As someone who spends their time fighting for immigrant rights, this must feel like D-Day. I mean, the day you've |
| 1:19.0 | spent your whole career preparing for. There's a lot to talk about, but maybe you can start |
| 1:25.2 | by just reminding us what incoming President Donald Trump has actually promised to do. |
| 1:32.3 | Yes, unfortunately, President Donald Trump has promised the biggest mass deportation operation in the history of the United States. |
| 1:42.3 | Donald Trump has promised a mass roundup of millions of undocumented persons who would be taken |
| 1:48.9 | to detention camps like Japanese American civilians were during World War II and then rapidly |
| 1:55.6 | deported. |
| 1:57.5 | What this means, it means creating huge amounts of detention camps. |
| 2:02.9 | He also has promised to take away citizenship from children who are born to undocumented parents. |
... |
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