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As President-elect Donald Trump is drawing nearer, some migrants are already leaving the US in “self-deportation”.
PBS News reports that Michel Berrios left the US a few days before the new year. Trump’s campaign for mass deportations was given a small victory.
Berrios is a former leader of a Nicaraguan student uprising. He was in the US legally and has a year remaining under President Joe Biden’s unprecedented use of humanitarian parole authority for citizens of certain vulnerable countries. However harsh talk during the US presidential election campaign filled her with anxious memories of hiding from authorities back home.
Advocates and immigration experts who have noticed such departures say Berrios’ decision to leave the US, despite her legal status, shows how uncertainty and threats have led a growing number of people to leave before Trump takes office on Monday.
Although there is no data on these departures, history has seen other eras of public backlash that drove migrants – with or without legal status – out.
Berrios said, “Because (the US) is not a Third World country like the ones many of us come from, I thought there would be a different culture here. and it is a rude awakening to realize that you and your family are not welcome”.
but self-deportation helps Trump to achieve his goal with little stress. He has long said he wanted to deport millions of migrants but never deported more than 350,000 a year in his first term. Only 41,500 detention beds are funded this year, so carrying out massive deportations has significant logistical hurdles.
