On January 21, the day after the newly elected 47th President, Donald J. Trump took office, he signed an executive order to have ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) start mass deportations in major cities, like Chicago, Illinois. These deportations spread quickly through the rest of the United States. According to Trump, “this is to get rid of illegal undocumented and criminal immigrants.” Immigrants who come to the United States undocumented are not all criminals. They work on farms, do construction, own business, support industries to help build America. They come to the United States to build a better future for their families and get discriminated against for it. The whole order is too big of a step for Trump to make only a day into office.
This whole thing is unnecessary. Since this order was signed, my own mother who, is an American born citizen, has been targeted due to a misconception because they thought she was illegal. Two people from her hotel chain were detained and deported on Jan. 23, and they started looking into the hotels to see if anyone else was there. Now, why would they do that? I thought they were just deporting criminals. My mom got a call from a co-worker saying that ICE was there for her. Obviously, my mom was confused because she is an American born citizen, why would ICE want to deport her? She started to get angry because she had to prove that she was born here in America and that she was not an undocumented immigrant. I am still grateful she did not get detained because I honestly would not know what to do if they just took her and I had no one to go home to. If Trump really wants to get rid of criminals, why not just focus on criminals themselves? Why just focus on immigrant ones? There are many crimes committed by American born citizens, but they cannot do anything about it? It is just an excuse to target one racial group. According to the Office of Homeland Security immigration enforcement and legal process, 111,010 people who are undocumented, legal, and American born have been arrested, removed, administrative or enforced returned to the executive order which shows how this is just a target on a racial group. Many immigrants who come here legally or have worked for this country in farms, construction, management, engineering, electrical work, and much more get overlooked. They contribute to the economy and workforce while according to Congress.gov paying $11.74 billion dollars each year in taxes for a government that wants them gone. In a press conference on Jan. 25, Trump has also announced going after Native American groups. These were the first people who were here in America along with the Mexicans who lived in states like New Mexico, Texas, Arizona to name a few and the Native Americans had their tribes stripped from them into small reserves of land even though they were the originally on this land. So, what is the point in deporting them? To where exactly? This whole plan will also be so costly for an economy President Trump loves to claim he will build up and make things cheaper. Deporting Immigrants will take a lot of money from the U.S. economy and with people out the workforce and less people paying taxes, this will make the U.S. economy crash and effect the U.S. and other countries.

I have had my own personal experiences with many immigrants from around the world and they are some of the nicest people I have ever met, to the point I would rather be in a room alone with an illegal immigrant than an American born citizen. I know people of both legal and illegal status who have clean records and have not done a thing so why label them as criminal aliens if they are coming to your country and contributing to your economy? That alone shows how much they just want to target immigrants and Mexicans as a racial attack. This is all going to go downhill so fast and hurt so many people physically, financially, culturally, and emotionally. So many families will be torn apart and economically hurt so many people, getting rid of so much culture and history, we will have to fight for years to get it back.
What president Trump can do to “Make America Great Again” is by making it great. Focus on actual criminals and not just a group of criminals not from a certain racial group. Focus on things to fix our economy instead of taking away workers and people who pay taxes. Pay attention to the needs of LGBTQ, different races, women’s rights, supporting those in addiction, our environmental issues, world hunger. There is so much going on in this world that he will not focus on that would Make America Great not again but to make it better for all of us to live here.