What might happen with immigration policies in the new year?

Julie Leftwich, director of international peace security initiatives at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, spoke with WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition for a segment about immigration policies advanced by President-elect Donald Trump for his second term in office.

Leftwich leads efforts at UC Law to establish a Center for International Peace and Security for the College, which will provide practice-based experiential learning and career development opportunities for students and serve as an interdisciplinary hub for scholarship and expertise.

The United States has at least 11 million unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. 

“What we know is he has promised to deport millions of immigrants,” Leftwich told WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition. “He has stated he will have large facilities for holding them. We also know that they are looking at revoking the statuses of people that are here, people that might have temporary protective status or humanitarian parole, and that could include Afghans that have humanitarian parole, who were evacuated from Afghanistan.

She says the new administration is looking at ‘broad efforts, going beyond anything that has ever happened in this country.”

Leftwich says plans by the incoming administration to deport millions of people could cause logistical as well as political problems. She adds it is being put forth to address border security and U.S. security, but will result in the opposite occurring.

Cincinnati immigration attorney Nazly Mamedova and Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, were also part of the Cincinnati Edition discussion on immigration.

The mission of the new Center for International Peace and Security will be to advance inclusive peace and security, support global organizations and institutions dedicated to human rights, gender equality, and peacebuilding, broaden the conversation around peace and security, and train future advocates.

Taking a rights-based, human-centered, interdisciplinary approach, the center will foster an understanding of the drivers of insecurity, conflict and displacement; the legal and policy frameworks to address them; effective peacebuilding strategies; and a framework for changing the traditional paradigms of peace and security to better reflect the challenges of today’s world. 

Listen to the full segment on Cincinnati Edition online.

Learn more about UC Law’s Julie Leftwich online.

Featured top image: WVXU journalist Lucy May, Nazly Mamedova (center) and Julie Leftwich shown at WVXU's Cincinnati Edition. Photo provided.