Valadez entered activism in the days following Donald Trump's election, a time of extreme insecurity for immigrants and border communities of all stripes.
The American Academy of Pediatrics' recent policy statement "Providing Care for Immigrant, Migrant and Border Children" highlights the special needs of immigrant children and poses several recommendations for how to address them, including making sure that all children have access to health insurance coverage and that any barriers preventing children and families from seeking coverage are removed.
He said the play, which concerns the plight of illegal aliens fleeing poverty and oppression in Latin America, deals with attitudes toward immigrants and borders.
Schenkkan wrote the play this past October, while then presidential candidate Trump was "making extraordinarily naked racist and nativist appeals based around illegal immigration, immigrants in general, and border security," he told me during a recent dress rehearsal.
The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is nonpartisan, but Palomarez has criticized the candidate for his immigration statements, which include plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and a border wall, and his claim that Mexico was sending murderers and rapists across the border. .
Most of them said they would try to overhaul immigration in their first year in office and would include a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants and tougher border security.
To force Mexico to pay for the wall, Trump intends to confiscate remittances sent back to Mexico by undocumented immigrants and increase border fees and tariffs, but the legal and practical obstacles to those actions are overwhelming, and Mexican officials promise not to contribute.
Trump's tough talk about Mexicans, immigrants and the border wall worries Republican leaders, who hoped this election could improve the GOP standing with Latinos.
Seeking a way to deter unauthorized immigrants more effectively, Customs and Border Protection began formalizing a whole host of previously informal policies.
Employment and earnings fell among unauthorized immigrants as border and interior enforcement ramped up in the USA in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Orrenius and Zavodny 2009).
How, one wonders, did Republicans ever convince themselves that "We're going to force Obama to deport immigrants and secure the border by attempting to defund the agency that deports immigrants and secures the border!" was a viable political plan?
