U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro regularly calls for nominations for Latinx films and music to be included in Library of Congress. Credit: Facebook / Joaquin Castro

San Antonio U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro joined other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Thursday said they’ll fight President Donald Trump’s raft of anti-immigration executive orders, which they called cruel and damaging.

In live-streamed press conference, members of the caucus said the presidential proclamations generate fear for immigrant communities, uncertainty for businesses and are poised to devastate the economy.

What’s more, the members of Congress blasted Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, something codified in the U.S. Constitution, as an absurd power grab. A federal judge has already temporarily blocked the order, which had scheduled to take effect next month.

“We can’t be distracted by what [Trump] says; look at what he does,” Castro said. “He says he’s targeting criminals, but he just removed the restrictions that stop [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] from conducting raids on schools, on hospitals and in churches,” said Castro, a Democrat. “I would ask you who he believes among those kids is a criminal sitting in a 1st-grade class.”

Castro said Trump drew inspiration for his orders from mass deportation sweeps of the 1930s and 1950s. Those operations led to the wrongful expulsion of as many as 2 million Latinos who were U.S. citizens — something Castro warned could happen again.

“In the 20th century, mass immigration raids led to the deportation of more than a million U.S. citizens, people who got wrapped up in immigration enforcement because of the color of their skin, their last name or the language that they primarily spoke,” Castro said.

“We’re going to stand up for families in this country, no matter where they are, whether they’re in San Antonio, they’re in Florida, Nebraska, California, Chicago — wherever they are,” he added.

Despite studies showing undocumented immigrants commit crimes at much lower rates that U.S. citizens, Trump and his allies have couched their deportation plans as matters of public safety.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Margarita Velázquez, D-New York, said the president’s pardon of hundreds of Jan. 6 insurrectionists charged with assaulting police indicates that he has little concern for protecting the public from criminals.

“Donald Trump didn’t care about safer communities when he released those who were convicted of beating the shit out of police officers,” she said. “Don’t come to us and talk about security and safer communities when you do that.”

The press conference followed a Wednesday closed-door session by the caucus, which Politico reports was fraught with disagreement over how best to hold the line against hard-line immigration bills while not turning away voters concerned about security.

Some Democrats, for example, threw their support behind the newly passed Laken Riley Act, which makes it easier for the feds to deport those without legal status if they’re accused of crimes as minor as shoplifting.

“This is a big-tent caucus, but we stand together,” Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-New York, said at Thursday’s press conference. “And we’re going to continue to stand together and take a strong stand on this issue.”

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This article appears in Jan 22 – Feb 4, 2025.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...