'What will I do?' Fear of deportation grips undocumented immigrants

Fear is rippling through undocumented communities across the US as Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House, promising record deportations after an election campaign filled with hate speech against migrants and a first term marked by anti-immigration crackdowns.

- Justo Robles

In the run-up to the presidential election, Areli Hernandez travelled to Phoenix to talk to voters about what mass deportations and, for many, a new form of family separation could mean for millions.

Hernandez said it was her own story that inspired her to sign up for the volunteer work in Arizona: as an undocumented person, her life in the US was on the line too.

"I remember when Donald Trump first came into power, every immigrant in my community was afraid to get picked up by immigration officials," said Hernandez, who was born in Mexico and brought to California as a child in the late 1980s. "And I know now that there's a lot of people scared, asking themselves: 'What am I going to do?'"

With Trump's victory over Kamala Harris, he is expected to fulfil his campaign pledge to unleash the biggest mass deportation of undocumented people "in US history".

He frequently calls people crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization "an invasion", including those requesting asylum from oppression, war, gang violence, domestic violence or climate crisis-driven poverty. And he falsely blames migrants for crime and economic woes.

Many families in the US now face being torn apart.

It is estimated that a million deportations a year could cost about $968bn (£750bn) in federal spending over a decade, according to the American Immigration Council, which would require congressional approval and trigger an "economic disaster".

And Trump told Time this year: "If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military."

Immigration experts say Trump's notion will require significant infrastructure, including new detention camps, and they expect him to do what he says he plans to do.