Small Business Funding

President-elect Donald Trump made several sweeping claims about immigration and deportation during his reelection campaign.At a rally in Pennsylvania, he said, “The day I take the oath of office, the migrant invasion ends, and the restoration of our country begins. The United States is now an occupied country.”Then, in Springfield, Ohio, he spoke about migrants again, saying, “They emptied their jails in Venezuela, emptied their criminals. They emptied the nests. They call them nests of bad people. They’re all now in the United States, and they’re now taking over cities. It’s like an invasion from within. We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country, and we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.” Early Tuesday morning, Trump appeared to confirm via Truth Social that he is prepared to declare a national emergency over immigration and that he will use military assets to carry out a mass deportation program.Trump has also announced picks for his administration that signal he wants to fulfill his promise for mass deportations, including immigration hardliner Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan as Border Czar.While a policy plan has not been officially outlined yet, the threat of deportations and cuts in funding for social services has been a concern in Maine’s immigrant communities, which are made up of people at varying stages of the legal process.”There’s a whole population of people who are really panicking,” Mufalo Chitam, the executive director of the Maine Immigrant’s Rights Coalition, said. “They are fearful for themselves but more so for their families.”Maine has been a destination for thousands of asylum seekers in recent years. The Migration Policy Institute reports Maine is home to more than 56,000 foreign-born residents, which is about 4% of the state’s population.According to the Pew Research Center, Maine had about 5,000 immigrants living in the state without documentation as of 2022.Chitam’s nonprofit in Portland helps immigrants with their legal, social and economic needs. ProsperityMe, led by Claude Rwaganje, does similar work, helping with education, housing and employment.”Maine’s economy depends on immigrants to continue operating their businesses. Without immigrants they will be shutting down,” Rwaganje told Maine’s Total Coverage.A report from the American Immigration Council and the University of Southern Maine reveals that in 2019, immigrants in Androscoggin County strengthened the local job market by keeping or creating 200 manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise been moved out of the area or eliminated completely.”You cannot go to any single business without finding an immigrant working there,” Rwaganje said.Chitam explained, “It may be your neighbor. It may be your child’s friend. It may be where you go for groceries. It may be who’s supporting your parents in a nursing home. It may be where you get your favorite food or the hospital where you go. Everyone’s going to be affected.”Both Rwaganje and Chitam hope Maine’s lawmakers will advocate for their immigrant neighbors and for the social services, like housing, that new Mainers rely on.”It should not be red state or blue state,” Rwaganje said. “It should be humanity, individuals, families, children, women, elderly, how we can support them.”Maine’s assistant GOP leader, Rep. Katrina Smith, said she understands the need for housing but acknowledges that Mainers have expressed feeling left out of previous housing initiatives.”I think we need to take a look at that and make sure that we’re using our tax dollars to pay and to help Maine people first,” Smith said.Smith visited the country’s northern and southern border regions in recent months, noting afterward a need for the ‘rule of law.’In her upcoming term, Smith said she would like to be able to help new Mainers who are actively working through the legal immigration process. A specific concern for Chitam is what will happen to her clients whose asylum is still pending.”I would advocate for the process to continue, to speed up that process, to have maybe certain courts that only deal with that and get this seen through,” she said. “If they’re in the process we should complete that process, see where they’re at. Overall, we have a lot of unknowns as to what’s going to happen, and we’ll wait for the federal government to tell us what course to take.”Maine’s 132nd legislature will be officially seated in the first week of December. President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Tuesday, Jan. 20.”The country is still together. The country has not fallen apart, and we survived the previous four years,” Rwaganje said. “We’ll survive again.”