‘Flood the zone’ immigration enforcement strategy sparks torrent of public debate, throws legal considerations overboard

It’s been nearly 150 years since Emma Lazarus named the Statue of Liberty the “Mother of Exiles,” exuding a proud “world-wide welcome” to the oppressed and poor of other countries. As much as in the 19th century, when “The New Colossus” was written, the US is a nation of immigrants: the US Census Bureau reported nearly 14% of the country’s residents being foreign-born as of 2022, and that share has since grown. Now, though, many in the US are less confident that immigration provides the reciprocal renewal and prosperity that Lazarus cast it as doing. Fears that immigrants, particularly those who enter the country illegally, take jobs from citizens, strain the social safety net, drive crime, and rock the fundamental social and cultural character of the country have led many to embrace stricter immigration policies. 

In 2024, Donald Trump was elected on campaign promises to crack down on immigration and launch mass deportations. Deportation rates have soared during the Trump administration even as illegal border crossings have fallen, a sign of more deportations from the interior of the US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests have hovered around 30,000 per month since May, which, though a dramatic rise from the rates during the Biden and first Trump administrations, falls far short of the 3,000 daily apprehensions pushed by National Security Advisor Stephen Miller. 

 Many believe, however, that the president has stepped beyond the bounds of executive authority in pursuing this mission. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship in a contested interpretation of the 14th Amendment, one that has since been stopped in court. In June, the president deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles without approval from California Governor Gavin Newsom to suppress protests sparked by increased ICE raids in the city, which is also the subject of legal challenges.

Dr. David Siemers, a professor of political science at UW-Oshkosh whose research has focused on American political thought and the separation of powers, believes that America’s judiciary has been a critical and rare source of resistance to the president.

“President Trump is justifying these actions by the fact that he is president of the United States and therefore, by his estimation, he has the ultimate power over the disposition of law enforcement agencies, including immigration control,” he said.

The Trump administration’s actions and messaging towards immigration have had a polarizing effect on American communities. Molly Smiltneek, an immigration attorney and Afghan legal services coordinator for World Relief, sees fear and suspicion on both sides of the aisle.

“There is a lot of rhetoric and belief right now around the idea that we should just get people who are not documented out of our country,” she said. “The Department of Homeland Security multiple times a day puts out press releases that are really inflammatory, talking about criminal, illegal aliens and all these terrible things that they’re doing, that they are responsible for crime in our country. It’s a lot of fear tactics, but it works and it’s othering.”

America’s fragmented views on immigration were recently reflected by student opinion at West. In a survey, 28% of students indicated that they believed rates of immigration to the US should be lower than they are now, with 20.4% in favor of higher rates. The survey also found that 22.3% of students support the mass deportation of immigrants, and 25.6% support the use of the National Guard or other military branches to enforce immigration policy.

For many students, Trump’s deportation policies are deeply personal. Among survey respondents, 9.8% said that they know someone personally who has been detained by ICE or deported, and 24% said that they feared the deportation of themselves or someone they know.

An anonymous West junior discussed the apprehension that Trump’s actions have created among friends whom the administration may not see as welcome in the US.

“This was something we had talked about earlier, like, if Trump gets into office, they might leave the country,” they said. “It’s just been something because they are not white, they do not look white, so if ICE comes to Oshkosh it’s quite likely that they will be taken, even though they were born in the US and their mother was born in the US and their grandmother has citizenship.”

Other students support the more aggressive ICE tactics being used since Trump came into office. Twenty-two percent of survey respondents said they support mass deportation, and 19.5% said they would support ICE raids in Oshkosh. Junior Brekken Urban thinks that, especially after an influx of 10 million migrants under the Biden presidency, there should be a reset in the US immigration system involving deportations and a pause on new migration.

“I think it may have put a strain on public services, such as health care and schools, who have to suddenly take in a huge influx of the children of these illegal immigrants,” he said. “I think it also may have had an effect on the housing boom. With having so many people here, they all have to buy houses, so now you’re legally here and you have to compete with somebody who is not supposed to be here, whether with housing or jobs.”

In the months since Trump took office, legal immigration pathways have been tightly restricted. Legal entry of individuals from 12 countries, many the sites of major humanitarian crises, has been fully restricted, and entry by individuals from another seven countries was partially limited. Citing an alleged invasion, Trump also attempted to entirely end asylum applications at the southern border, although this was blocked in court in July. Smiltneek has dealt firsthand with the chaos such actions create. 

“I work with asylees, and they’re not getting their green card, the next step for them, processed. It’s all paused or unofficially paused, or it’s just taking longer,” she said. “What was already a really difficult, long process is now impossible for many people, and that’s causing many more people to become undocumented. They might have been temporary for a very long time, but they had legal status. They came in legally, and the Trump Administration is saying, no, we are ending, for example, your temporary protected status or ending your parole program.”

These policies have major consequences not only for individuals who wish to migrate to the US, but for those who are already here. Mashebe Subulwa, who directs the Oshkosh non-profit SEPO Zambia, supports refugees and others with protected status as they fight to maintain their legal residency.

“The paperwork that they have right now that is able to give them food stamps, that is able to give them medical care, always expires after so many months. You are supposed to come to the office to renew your paperwork to continue getting assistance, but now this office is sleeping. So now you have expired,” he said. “Everybody is in hiding right now. They have nowhere to go.”

A hallmark of the second Trump administration has been sweeping funding cuts across the government. While actions like restricting funding to World Relief are clearly connected to support for immigrants and refugees, others, like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, affect immigrant communities more covertly by cutting supplemental nutrition benefits and other social services. SEPO Zambia, which operates a food pantry and helps refugees find employment, is stretching to meet the need created as programs have been cut, according to Subulwa.

“Families don't know that we are only able to help them because we have a little money, so they'll be shocked and disappointed as, maybe by the end of the year, as they come here, they won't find even simple feminine pads, diapers, you know?” he said.

According to Siemers, Americans often overestimate the economic burden of immigrants.

“If they have jobs, they pay taxes unless they’re totally in the underground economy, and those who are are typically day laborers doing things like pick lettuce, things that typically English-speaking citizens of the United States don’t want to do,” he said.

Karl Buelow, who serves on Oshkosh’s Common Council, believes that US communities would benefit from expanding educational and social resources that would help immigrants find employment. Oshkosh, which has one of Wisconsin’s highest per capita refugee populations, could draw from this resource in particular.

“Many of these refugees were doctors or nurses or teachers or business owners in their countries, and then they’re placed here, and then they're not qualified to work in those jobs many times just because they can't speak English,” he said. “And so we are seeing a dearth. We are desperate for more teachers and nurses and qualified people, and the refugees and immigrants that we have here that would be amazing at those jobs aren’t even thought about as a resource.”

Urban sees moderate immigration as essential to the long-term health of the US economy.

“We will need immigrants. We're having a huge birth rate decline,” he said. “Lots of Americans are not having children as much as they used to or not having kids at all, so I think it is important that we do let some immigrants here, but just at a steady rate.”

Though he sees potential economic value in expanding legal pathways for immigrants, especially those with the skills to contribute to the tech industry, Urban believes other policies should be enforced more stringently, pointing to asylum applications as an example.

“These people apply for asylum willy-nilly, just to slow down the immigration process so they can finally get a job and settle in,” he said. “It’s a bad rap on people like refugees from South Sudan and Palestine and other Middle Eastern countries where they’re actually at war and being discriminated against, the people who I would actually welcome into our country as refugees.”

Asylum requests rose dramatically after the pandemic, surpassing 945,000 in 2023, although steady growth occurred over the course of the first Trump administration. In 2022, 14.17% of asylum claims were granted and 16.74% were denied, according to the Congressional Research Service. Remaining cases were closed, dismissed, or withdrawn, in which cases applicants may be allowed to remain in the US.

Smiltneek agrees that seeking asylum can be done as a defense when an individual enters the deportation process, but she notes the asylum process’s high legal standard and critical protection for persecuted individuals. 

“Many people believe that they should be asylees or refugees here in the United States,” she said. “In my opinion, they should be given the right to at least pursue that and have their due process given to them and have their case heard.”

Due process in deportation proceedings has come under threat in the current presidential administration. In March, the administration deported 283 Venezuelan men with alleged ties to the gang Tren De Aragua, sending these individuals to a notorious El Salvadoran prison in defiance of a court order. 

After accidentally deporting Maryland asylum seeker Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, where a judge ruled in 2019 he could not be deported because of the threat to his security in that country, the Trump administration claimed for months that it was not able to arrange his return. Abrego Garcia was subsequently returned to the US in June. 

In another high-profile case, the Trump administration placed Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who engaged in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University in 2023, in ICE detention. Khalil was not given a trial before entering federal custody, although he has been released and is temporarily protected from deportation. In September, an immigration judge ruled he could be deported to Algeria or Syria.

During an ICE raid on a Georgia Hyundai plant in September, multiple valid visa holders were accidentally detained by ICE. There have also been several instances of tourists, including Italian TikTok star Khaby Lame and Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney, being detained.

Students at West have seen the effect of Trump’s ask-questions-later approach to deportation. An anonymous senior described the experience of a friend’s father in Florida after he was stopped for a minor speeding violation.

“He didn’t have the registration of the car on him and was let off with a warning. Later that day ICE came to his home and detained him,” they said. “He was released two months later because he was confirmed to be in the US legally.”

Siemers believes that due process must ultimately prevail to correct governmental mistakes that may occur in Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign.

“I think the way we do it and what’s publicized is even more important than raw deportation numbers, because if you don’t give someone due process, that is, allow them a hearing in court, for instance, the government can make mistakes about what it does,” he said. “And those mistakes are kind of irremediable unless you get a court to potentially intervene.”

The anonymous junior expressed concern about the Trump administration’s disregard for habeas corpus and the rule of law, but sees weakness in the legal process even when it is followed.

“At times there are things that are happening to push back, but it’s not nearly enough, because the Supreme Court almost always just goes along with whatever the president says, and Congress as well is not fighting him on nearly any issues,” they said.

As an example, the student raised a widely criticized September Supreme Court ruling that allowed ICE to resume raids in Los Angeles and consider factors like language, ethnicity, and place of employment as potential indicators of illegal status.

“They’re explicitly allowing police forces to use racial profiling as evidence, and then also just in general ignoring citizenship and green cards—everything,” they said.

Rapid changes to acceptable ICE conduct have concerned Buelow over the safety of individuals who have immigrated to the local community from outside the US, even when they have legal status or are naturalized citizens.

“When ICE is doing their investigations, they don't ask if you’re here legally, they ask, were you born outside the United States, and if you answer yes to that question, then you’re automatically subject to more scrutiny, which I think is just absolutely gobsmacking,” he said.

At the same time, many fear that immigrants themselves pose a threat to the security of American communities. Student responses to the survey question, “What concerns, if any, do you have about immigration in the US?” commonly included mentions of crime, violence, drug trafficking, and gang activity. Some mentioned cases like the 2024 murder of nursing student Laken Riley, who was killed by a man previously arrested for illegally entering the US but released while his case made its way through immigration court.

For Urban, crime is one of the things that sets current immigration apart from that of past periods of American history.

“In the early 1900s, late 1800s, we didn’t have drug trafficking or huge narco terrorism organizations like we do today, so that’s a huge national security concern,” he said.

Some feel that the Trump administration’s immigration agenda is not designed with law and order in mind to the extent that the president purports. The anonymous senior views the current immigration crackdown as more in line with presidential actions like consolidating control of the Smithsonian and cutting funding to programs supporting marginalized communities.

“The current presidential administration fails to show actual care in illegal immigration and cares more about the type of people who come to the country,” they said. “He has tried to remove people from the country illegally because of who they are ethnically. They have even targeted the image of people in the US who are here legally because of cultural views.”

Family separation was another concern raised by many students in survey responses. During the first Trump administration, the president faced public outcry and legal challenges over a family separation policy intended to deter families from entering the US illegally. Trump issued an executive order reversing this policy in June 2018, although children continued to be separated from their families through 2019. 

Since returning to office, the White House has maintained that families are not being separated during legal processing and deportation, though this has been disputed in reporting by the New York Times and other publishers. In the new administration, however, a different sort of family separation is taking place as families are divided in the course of coming to the US under old legal protocol, according to Subulwa. 

“For those refugees that are here, some of them had their families already booked for flights. The former US government already booked flights for the moms and dads to come. So, when this new government came, they shut down those flights,” he explained. “So if your mom was already here in the US—like some of the families that I know, the wife is already here with the kids, dad was coming back—dad is never going to come back to be with the family.”

Many students see a difference between individuals who have recently come to the US and those who have established families, jobs, and communities here. Junior Cavon McCormick thinks that immigration policy should be more tightly enforced in the future to help guarantee resources for individuals already here.

“There are people who come here illegally who are good,” he said. “And I believe that if they come here illegally and they’ve been here for years and they haven't caused a single issue, we should help them get their shot so they can stay, because they proved themselves to be good citizens.”

This seems unlikely to happen during the Trump administration, given its current actions and priorities. The president’s attitude towards immigration has driven many in the country to self-deport rather than risk encounters with ICE. Rates of immigration have also declined as individuals who would have before considered migration to the US are now choosing not to seek entry. Pew Research reports that, as of June 2025, 51.9 million immigrants lived in the US, down from a peak of 53.3 million in January. Self-deportation and declining immigration have likely contributed to the slowing of the job market in recent months, a concern of the Trump administration.

 Though he says that it is unrealistic to believe the US can recreate itself as it was near the turn of the 20th century, a period the president has spoken fondly of, Siemers says that the immigration debate offers the American people the opportunity to reflect on the nation’s identity. 

“I generally think of immigration as a net plus, but there are plenty of people who think about it as a net minus, and let’s just say elections have consequences,” he said. “This is kind of an important experiment in what kind of country we want to be.”

Smiltneek has found the first months of the Trump administration to be trying as she is unable to confidently offer counsel to individuals amid unpredictable immigration policy. She has heard frequently from members of the community who do not know how to stand up for their values and offered advice for those concerned about the security of immigrants.

“Educate yourself about what is happening, what immigrants’ experiences are and what is changing under this administration,” she wrote in a presentation for the League of Women Voters in July. “Make the places you have power venues for education and dialogue.”

Many are exacerbated by the polarization surrounding the immigration debate. McCormick believes that people too frequently make generalized and uninformed judgements of immigrants.

“I think this issue needs more attention instead of just pointing your finger and blaming anybody you can for any issue,” he said.

by Aria Boehler

Published October 6, 2025

Oshkosh West Index Volume 122 Issue I