Trump and Salem: How will the President’s Immigration Orders Affect SSU’s community?
By: Tucker Worrall
When President Donald Trump began his campaign in the summer of 2016, the most notable part of his announcement was his call for a crackdown on illegal immigration. He said that Mexicans were flowing into the United States and damaging the U.S. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.” Through the rest of the campaign he repeated these claims, and proposed building a wall across America’s southern border to prevent more immigration. He also looked toward Europe, saw the debate about the ongoing Syrian refugee crises, and stoked American fear of Islamic terrorism. He said he would ban all Muslims from entering the country “until we can figure out what’s going on.” After he was elected, in a stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, and was sworn in as president two months later, some of his first actions were to follow through on his campaign promises. In the first weeks of his presidency he issued three executive orders on immigration.
The first, entitled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, was released just five days after Trump took the oath of office. It stripped federal funds from sanctuary cities, expanded the number of immigration officers by 10,000, and created an office to ‘assist’ victims of crimes that were committed by undocumented immigrants. The second focused on border security. It calls for the wall along the Mexican border to be built, and asked for 5,000 more border agents to be hired. The last, and most publicized, suspended immigration from seven majority Muslim countries. When taken together these illuminate the fundamental shift away from former President Barack Obama’s immigration policy. At the same time, the White House called for more enforcement of existing immigration laws. These orders have already had obvious effects on how the U.S. treats foreigners entering the country, and non-citizens that are already here. At least a hundred people were stopped at the border because the travel ban order came into effect immediately. In the two months since, many more have been denied visas. In a recent example, no African delegates were allowed to enter the US to attend a meeting about the economic development of their own continent. Elsewhere the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, stepped up arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants. Even though federal judges halted the travel order and its replacement, millions of people living in the U,S. have an uncertain future.
Both the City of Salem and Salem State University have responded to President Trump’s election, and his subsequent executive orders. Salem State affirmed they’re committed to their international students and promised to protect undocumented matriculating students as much as possible. However, their initial announcement about the University's immigration policy was tempered by the admission that the school’s administration may be unable to block the Federal Government’s efforts. In a letter to the campus community before Trump was inaugurated SSU’s outgoing president, Dr. Patricia Meservey, wrote “No college or university has the legal authority to guarantee an override of federal law in all cases, and making such a statement would be irresponsible.” At the same time she promised that only information that the school would release the information that they were required to do by law, and that SSU does not keep records of which students could be undocumented.
After the executive orders were released, President Meservey released another statement. This time the school promised even less, just that they would have information available about the order and that in Meservey’s view the order “ challenges the ability of colleges and universities across the country to take part in an increasingly connected and collaborative world – one in which embracing talent across borders benefits us economically, scientifically, academically and socially.” It seems that while the school was against Trump’s actions, there was little it legally could do to stop the federal government. The City of Salem has discussed becoming a sanctuary city, and city officials have said that Trump’s executive orders will not stop them. On March 29th the Salem News published a letter from President Meservey in which she voiced support for Salem to become a sanctuary city. She wrote “The Sanctuary for Peace ordinance is an important step in helping to ensure that the vibrant, welcoming atmosphere that helps us thrive remains in place, so that together, we can continue to flourish.”
A meeting on the proposal will be held on March 29th. The plan would allow police to talk to federal investigators, but would codify that Salem police forces would not enforce any immigration law. Elaine Milo, President of the City Council, says about the ordinance “ I think it is important that we take this opportunity to remind everyone in Salem that we have their backs. We don’t know the next group of people who may be under attack and we should be thinking ahead. My sense is that would go a long way with the majority of people in the community.”
I sat down with Professor Daniel Mulcare, of SSU’s political science department, to discuss the impacts of the Trump presidency on campus. “If [SSU] was a place like Harvard, or UMass Amherst, or a much bigger school, like a research one school instead of a regional university, it would be affected more. However, we do want to have a diverse faculty, and one of the diversities is people from different countries. And [Trump’s immigration policies] may be limiting… we do have a pretty substantial immigration population.” In Mulcare’s view the Trump administration's immigration policies will damage American academia’s ability to attract talent. At the same time however, he is unsure how effective Trump’s policies will be. “The reason why he is effective is because there is already an institution in place. There are already customs officers in place, there are already immigration officers in place, and they felt restrained under Obama, and now they can actually implement the laws the way they presumably want to. But, if it was something that Trump had to build from the ground up it wouldn’t be the same thing, because he is a horrible president… he’s incompetent.” Dr. Mulcare also believes that the Trump White House, and in particular his senior advisor Steve Bannon, do not want a functioning government. He said “Steve Bannon wants to deconstruct the government. What that means is that you can make it totally sclerotic so that you can hand it off to somebody and it just doesn’t work, and the next person has to build it back up.”
It seems that the two competing goals of the administration, that of paralyzing the normal functioning of the government, and of tightening immigration controls are directly opposed to each other. Salem State may make it through unharmed because of the lack of a functioning executive branch. Even taking this into account, as well as the school’s assurances to protect their students in the future in uncertain. When asked about a hypothetical situation where ICE agents show up on campus, Professor Mulcare was unsure about what the result would be. “You don’t know until it happens”.
In the end, all this debate could be for nothing. With mounting pressure on the administration, and continued leaks about Trump’s connections to the Russian government, the Trump administration may not be long lived. Dr. Mulcare said “I don’t know. When I think in my head, I just can’t logically work through the steps. That’s when I think: is it logical?...Does it make sense? That’s when I think it doesn’t make sense that he will last four years” It’s possible that Trump will not last very much longer, and that he will be impeached. When coupled with the incompetence of his presidency it’s hard to make predictions about the future. It could be that SSU remains totally unaffected, and in a year everything has returned to a more normal climate. All that’s left to the University and it’s students to do it wait, and hope for a good outcome. Until the result of Trump’s policies become clear, undocumented students, or students with undocumented family members, will continue to worry. Only time will tell what will happen to the SSU community.