‘The first day back I would probably be dead’: The fearful migrants at the top of Trump’s mass deportation list

Fabiola Francois an undocumented migrant from Haiti
Fabiola Francois, 42, has lived in the US since she was six-months-old but fears deportation to Haiti - David Burns for The Telegraph

Fabiola Francois is due to be deported from the United States days after Donald Trump starts his second term in the White House on a promise to expel tens of millions of undocumented migrants.

The 42-year-old Haitian-born migrant was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the authorities were notified of an outstanding court warrant for driving without a licence.

She arrived in the southern Floridian city of Miami at six-months-old with her aunt.

It wasn’t until her eighth birthday that Ms Francois discovered she wasn’t born in the United States, when her carer died of cancer and she was thrust into the care system.

What followed was a decade of being passed between foster homes, attempts to run away and ultimately having none of the paperwork required to remain in the country.

“When I turned 18, they just let me go,” Ms Francois told The Telegraph. “I was in the streets, on drugs, having sex with men just to make it.”

Since then, her mounting rap sheet — including fraud for faking an identity card with her real details because she is not entitled to a government-issue ID — means Ms Francois is in the crosshairs of Mr Trump’s policy of mass deportations.

Little Havana, Miami
In Little Havana, Miami, long-term immigrants have mixed views on recent arrivals - David Burns for The Telegraph

The president-elect said in his victory speech earlier this week he had been given a “powerful mandate” for his agenda, including the militant crackdown on illegal immigration.

“We’re going to have a great four years, we’re going to turn our country around. We’re going to seal up those borders, we want people to come back in, but they have to come in legally,” he said.

As an election candidate, he pledged to carry out the “largest deportation effort in American history”.

Mr Trump started his first term in 2016 promising to deport millions of immigrants, but was blocked by legal challenges, Democrats gaining control of the House in 2018, and public criticism over his methods — which included separating families at the border.

Today things are different. As well as winning both the House and Senate, Mr Trump won the popular vote in a convincing election victory that will be seen by many as giving him a strong mandate for change.

Mr Trump’s allies believe the first tranche of deportations will be swift, although they are under no illusion that this is a long-term project that could play out for decades.

Trump toys in a shop window
Trump toys in a shop window in Miami where many residents are supportive of Trump, whom they helped re-elect - David Burns for The Telegraph

There are approximately 11 million undocumented migrants residing in the US, about 3 per cent of the population.

“The first thing you need to do is let law enforcement do their job,” Chad Wolf, who was secretary of state for homeland security at the end of Mr Trump’s first term in office, told The Telegraph.

He added: “The second thing is... I think people are thinking about this wrong. This deportation effort is not a one or two-month endeavour. It’s not a snapshot in time where you’re going to remove millions of people over two months, right? This is a sustained effort over many months and years, and the end result will be more removals than this country has ever seen.”

All told, Mr Trump’s plan is a colossal undertaking, which could trigger labour shortages and cost billions of dollars.

To do so would  require an almost complete overhaul of the systems put in place under Joe Biden, who oversaw a record number of illegal border crossings during his four years as president.

Mr Trump would also need other nations to accept deported migrants and allow return flights to land on their soil.

Some Trump advisers believe the money to pay for the deportation scheme — and the construction of a border wall — could be moved from the Pentagon’s budget.

They have also floated the possibility of declaring a national emergency so military funds, planes and bases can be used to detain and move undocumented migrants without encountering legal problems.

Mr Wolf, who has been touted as a possible member of Mr Trump’s top team, said there were a “variety of different measures” to streamline the deportation process.

His plans would lead to curbs on what he describes as “fraudulent protection claims” for would-be asylum seekers who abuse the system by making assertions that they are in danger in their home countries.

Other courses of action include accelerating migrants’ asylum hearings and cancelling protections against deportations introduced by Mr Biden.

A third option would be to introduce a policy to deport migrants to a safe third country if they cannot be sent home. Panama and some African nations are under consideration for such a scheme.

A similar “Remain in Mexico” policy was imposed by Mr Trump in 2019 to dissuade asylum seekers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by forcing them to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims were processed.

“I think once you start imposing consequences to those that don’t have a legal right to be here, then I think you’ll see the flow [into the country] start to slow down,” Mr Wolf said.

These consequences, however, come with both an economic and human cost to them.

A report by research firm the American Immigration Council has suggested the round-up efforts could cost $968 billion over a decade to deport all estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

The main costs would involve hiring new personnel to carry out the deportations and staff mass detention centres.

The estimate, however, doesn’t include the loss of tax revenues or the wider impacts on the economy because of possible labour shortages.

Role in workforce

Undocumented migrants make up around 5.2 per cent of the US workforce, according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

They mainly work in construction, restaurants, agriculture, gardening and food processing, with demand growing for taxi drivers, care workers and medical assistants.

It would also reduce by around $100 billion federal and local tax receipts as estimated by the American Community Survey in 2022.

But the cost or economic damage is not in the question for Mr Trump and his allies.

The president-elect said in an interview with NBC News this week: “It’s not a question of a price tag.

“Really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”

For people like Ms Francois, who have spent the majority of their lives in the US, the cost is more personal.

Having overcome an upbringing in foster care and undergone a life-saving operation to remove a brain tumour, the 42-year-old now fears she will die in Haiti.

“It’s scary because I don’t even speak their language,” she said, from her lawyer’s tenth-floor office in downtown Miami.

“And then what is going on with the gang members in Haiti… I think when I get there the first day I probably would be dead.”

Mayra Joli, Ms Francois’s lawyer, a Trump-supporting immigration attorney, is arguing to the authorities that her client’s deportation order should be dropped because she is entitled to a scheme which offers immigrant crime victims a chance to stay in the US.

Immigration attorney Mayra Joli
Attorney Mayra Joli said new arrivals in the US needed to be distinguished from immigrants who had been there for years - David Burns for The Telegraph

The 42-year-old said she was only detained by ICE after reporting her then-boyfriend for a domestic violence assault, which is when the police discovered the outstanding warrant. The Telegraph reviewed medical records from a Miami hospital that said she had sustained concussive blows to the head.

Dominican-born Ms Joli, who has built a career on defending those facing detention and removal from the US, claimed Ms Francois’ circumstances are not the same as people crossing the border illegally during Mr Biden’s term in office.

Ms Joli argues that the most recent arrivals receive a bouquet of benefits not afforded to many undocumented migrants who have lived and worked in, and contributed, to the US system for decades.

She claimed the most recent arrivals received money for housing and childcare, and also cited a soon-to-be-ended scheme in New York which gives prepaid debit cards to migrants to buy food.

“There is a difference between illegal immigrants and illegal immigrants,” Ms Joli said, pointing to Ms Francois.

“This is an immigrant that we had already here. If we haven’t fixed this, how come we bring in more?”

Trump memorabilia
Ms Joli is herself a supporter of Mr Trump and has memorabilia dedicated to him in her office - David Burns for The Telegraph

Across the country, undocumented immigrants yet to be located by the authorities have endured anxious days since November 6.

A school teacher in San Francisco told the city’s Standard newspaper that her students, many of whom are new to the US, have been crying in class since the election.

“I don’t have papers and people are nervous that they are going to come and take a lot of people out from their work sites and deport them,” Edwin Tito, 40, who arrived in New York from Ecuador two years ago, told The New York Times.

In Little Havana, Miami’s Cuban heritage hub, the feeling is that the president-elect bears no ill will to their immigrant community and is instead targeting the latest arrivals.

In a cigar shop off the main strip, Jose Ramon Perez, 73, sat smoking Winston Churchill’s favourite cigar, a Romeo y Julieta.

He arrived illegally on a small boat to the US from Cuba some 32 years ago, but has little sympathy for the latest crop of migrants who entered the country during Mr Biden’s tenure.

“Fifteen days later, I was working and paying my rent, and then I went to the social security office and said: ‘OK, I don’t need any help,’” he said

“That’s not what these people are doing.”

Jose Ramon Perez
Jose Ramon Perez has little sympathy for new immigrants who show no sign of wanting to work - David Burns for The Telegraph

Johnny “Big Papa” Cardona, who owns a nearby store selling Cuban shirts, acknowledged some of the local community was spooked by Mr Trump’s crackdown on migration.

But having asserted himself as a “Trump guy”, Mr Cardona dismissed those concerns: “You know what he’s talking about: bad guys!

“He’s not referring to the people that have been here 20 or 30 years.”

Store owner Johnny Cardona
Store owner Johnny Cardona said he was confident Mr Trump’s deportations would only affect ‘bad guys’ - David Burns for The Telegraph

Wearing his Guayabera, a Cuban shirt, with a cigar nestled in his top pocket, Mr Cardona complained that migration was no longer from traditional south and central American countries, but from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

It is perhaps no surprise then that Mr Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Miami’s Dade County, which contains Little Havana and is 68 per cent Hispanic.

In the eyes of Mr Perez, it was all about taking back control.

“You feel like you need to have better control…control like we used to have before,” he said.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.