Gazing into the void of 2025, when President-elect Donald Trump takes office, some folks are not sitting idly by waiting for the unknown. They are embracing it.
It was just a few weeks ago, thoughts of an even-keeled Trump administration taking office on Jan. 20 was a possibility. Since the future president’s announced nominations of a rogues’ gallery of future U.S. government leaders, not so much.
Take Kash Patel, who Trump has named his future director of the FBI to shake up the agency and get rid of “deep state” sleeper cells. With that announcement J. Edgar Hoover, not known as a non-political FBI director during his decades-long term, surely has been spinning like a top in his grave.
“We’re gonna come after the people in the media,” Patel has promised, spouting like a banana republic strongman. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.” Perhaps he’ll start by chopping at the lineup of the three FBI procedurals CBS-TV airs on Tuesdays.
In 1984, author George Orwell offered that in Big Brother’s Ministry of Truth, enemies were eliminated from history. If Trump decides to found a Department of Truth in his administration, planning for the unknown takes on new meaning.
That is why officials at the majority-Hispanic Waukegan Unit School District are taking seriously the future Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented migrants. Most of us realize there are plenty of them in Waukegan and Lake County, many of them our neighbors.
According to Steve Sadin’s front-page News-Sun story earlier this week, District 60 officials last month discussed potentially strengthening a 2018 resolution making it a Safe Haven District for immigrants. “We have heard the president-elect’s rhetoric, and we have families who are a mixed status,” school board President Brandon Ewing acknowledged.
“No one is 100% sure what is going to happen, but we want to make sure there is something in place for the students who are in our care,” he added.
Well said, but one reason Trump was elected, and received a substantial portion of Latino votes, was his pledge to start deportations once he takes office. A June Gallup Poll found that 55% of respondents said they want to see immigration decrease.
This is why educators, not only in Waukegan, are looking into the unknown. That resolution adopted by District 60 in the midst of Trump’s first term made clear city schools are “safe havens.” That resolution remains in effect.
School officials want to be prepared for what may happen if large-scale deportations begin, and be ahead of the curve on how to combat what could turn out to be mass pandemonium. How those deportations will occur the Trump administration has yet to fully outline.
Migration to the U.S. is a tradition in Mexico dating back more than a century, and remains so today. U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended Mexican nationals more than a half-million times in each of the past two years, remaining the single-largest nationality encountered at the Southern Border, according to federal data.
The future president has said undocumented criminals will be the first to go as soon as he is sworn into office on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After that, he hinted at the use of military units to aid in sweeps targeting the undocumented.
With an estimated 12 million immigrants illegally in the U.S., it will be a gargantuan task, to say the least. The cost of the roundups hasn’t been spelled out, or the price the nation’s economy may suffer for the loss of a large pool of workers at all levels.
Caught in the middle of any deportations will be students in Waukegan and various Lake County schools who were born in the U.S., but whose parents have no legal grounds to be in El Norte. Many from Mexico and Central America are here for economic reasons or to escape violence.
If deported to Mexico, as Trump plans, the undocumented may not get much sympathy from Mexicans. Seven in 10 Mexicans believe that migrant flows into their country are “excessive,” according to a survey last year by the nonprofit Oxfam Mexico.
More than half of respondents said they believe migration has a negative, or no positive impact on the country’s economy or culture, and 40% think migration in Mexico should be limited or prohibited. Some 13% believe their border should be closed and migrants deported.
If Waukegan school and city officials reinforce their support for undocumented immigrants, they will have an ally in Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker who has vowed to “Trump-proof” the state as the Republican becomes the 47th president. As Trump’s unknown factors come into focus, Waukegan educators have the blueprint to help students in what could become worst-case scenarios.
The state needs to outline its action plan before ICE teams come a calling, searching for undocumented Illinois residents. That void is being filled with fear.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
X: @sellenews
