The election of Donald Trump as our next president means a lot of changes are in store for America, and immigration is definitely going to be one of the policy areas he hits the hardest. Trump’s xenophobic comments caused irreparable damage to our society from the moment he started his campaign, but the real danger now stands in the fact that his xenophobia can feasibly be translated into law come next year. This article from Forbes has an easy-to-digest breakdown of what judicial changes we can anticipate during Trump’s presidency pertaining to refugees, immigrants, and let’s not forget: THE WALL (cue eye roll). As it turns out, building a wall would not actually be an effective method of reducing illegal immigration, but that’s not the point. The anti-“other” sentiment behind this major rallying cry for his supporters is more terrifying than any physical barrier he could build. As another article put it, “Equally disconcerting is the metaphorical wall Trump has already built against immigrants using xenophobia and toxic rhetoric.” We can only hope that Americans as a people will rise above this antiquated nationalistic mentality.
