Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

One of my friends suggested that I try to find stuff to write about other than Donald Trump.

Good point.  But Trump is doing such outlandish things as he prepares to take office that I know I won’t be able to avoid writing about his bid to make what I label, “Make American Less Great Again.”

Going after immigrants is one of those cases.

No one in America should be surprised that Trump is following through on his campaign promises to deport as many of them as he can.

No matter that, in one way or the other, all of us either are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants.  Other than Native Americans, of course.

Hill.com dealt with the coming reality:

“Immigrants with humanitarian or temporary legal status in the United States are at risk of being rendered effectively undocumented by the incoming Trump administration.

“More than 1.5 million people can currently live and work in the country protected both by longtime programs including Temporary Protected Status and Biden Administration innovations such as the parole processes for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants.

“’Twilight’” or ‘liminal’ stati occupy a gray area between unauthorized presence in the United States and legal permanent immigration paperwork.  According to data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute, the federal government has 3,390,295 grants of liminal statuses, though the number of people protected is almost certainly lower because some foreign nationals may be protected by more than one program.”

Hill.com adds that, without the protections granted by these programs, immigrants who are accustomed to living and working in the United States legally could lose those rights overnight, risking their livelihoods and potentially being detained and deported.

Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, puts it this way:

“The deportation process is legal and complicated for all but very recent arrivals, with oversight by courts.  The country of origin can make return nearly impossible, although doing so would risk the wrath of Trump.

“As for using the military, as Trump has threatened, U.S. Today says, ‘Multiple presidential administrations have used the U.S. military in border enforcement, but U.S. law strictly prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.’”

Still, just wait.  Trump will try to find a way to use the military for this purpose.

And one of the first targets could be the state of Florida where Trump lives.  USA Today writes this: 

“President-elect Trump is already laying the groundwork to fulfill one promise he made on the campaign trail:  Mass deportations.  In his current home state of Florida, immigration experts said that about 5 per cent of the state’s population – or 1.1 million people – live there without legal permission.  The impact on the state’s communities, workplaces and economy will depend on how far Trump goes with his plan.”

More specifically, according to hill.com, here is a list programs that could be at risk under the second Trump administration:

Temporary Protected Status:  TPS actually is not an immigration program at all.  It was set up in 1990 amid increased migration from El Salvador, where death squads run by the U.S.-supported government were terrorizing a segment of the population.

The program was approved with Salvadorans in mind, but it gave the federal government the ability to grant work permits and deferrals from deportation to nationals of any designated nation.  Countries can be designated for TPS for up to 18 months at a time to avoid deporting people to somewhere going through or recovering from natural or man-made disasters.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals:  If TPS is the highest-profile statutory humanitarian relief program for foreign nationals, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is its executive action counterpart.

DACA was the Obama administration’s most visible immigrant relief effort, an origin story that attracts Democrats and repels Republicans.

But through its lifetime, DACA has gained bipartisan clout because it protects a publicly sympathetic group of people known as “Dreamers.”

Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors — DACA beneficiaries are a subset of Dreamers who fulfilled the program’s requirements, including being born on or after 1981, arriving before 2007 and passing the relevant background checks.

Biden parole programs:  A second Trump administration is certain to stop accepting migrants into the country under parole programs started under Biden, but it’s less clear what will happen to people who have already received parole.

According to Migration Policy Institute numbers, the current administration has granted parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals 531,000 times as of September.  But the Biden administration has also said it will not renew CHNV parole status, forcing beneficiaries to seek a different status, including asylum or TPS.

Asylum:  The United States asylum system is overwhelmed, with a backlog of more than 2 million cases.  But there is significant overlap between asylum, gray area statuses and visas, including green cards.

So, there it is.  Programs for immigrants where there is little doubt but that Trump and his cronies will go after them.

Which raises as final thought for me.

My wife and I, along with many others in Salem, Oregon, have been supporting Salem for Refugees, which makes heroic efforts to re-settle immigrants in and around Salem.  But, what will Trump anti-immigration thrusts mean for programs such as this good one in Salem?

Of course, no one knows yet. 

But what Trump cannot do is forbid individual citizens such as my wife and me from setting out to do good work in our cities and neighborhoods, including with refugees.