Sen. Joni Ernst told Storm Lake High School students on Friday they don’t need to worry about President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
“Ernst insisted potential deportations wouldn’t impact employees at Tyson Foods or the rest of Storm Lake,” the Storm Lake Times Pilot reported.
Ernst’s meeting with students in the school’s leadership class happened as the president-elect and his advisors have been repeatedly saying the Trump administration will begin the sweeping immigration raids and building of detention camps for those arrested he promised on the campaign trail on his first day in office.
On Monday, Trump confirmed on his Truth Social account his intention to use the military in his mass deportation program. In an early morning post on Truth Social, Trump quoted-tweeted a post from earlier this month by a longtime supporter that said Trump will “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” as part of his program. Commenting on that post, the president-elect wrote, “TRUE!!!”
Trump has also said he intends to abolish Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which allows some individuals from countries designated by the State Department as particularly unstable or dangerous for residents to remain in the United States and qualify for a work permit. He plans to expel people who currently qualify for TPS, as well as revoke the citizenship of U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants so they too can be expelled from the country. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and has been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions going back to 1897.
But Ernst told the Storm Lake students she believes Trump’s deportation plans will focus just on criminals.
“What we should focus on if he [Trump] wants to remove people, is those that have been convicted felons, sexual assaults and so forth,” she said.
Ernst, a loyal Trump supporter, campaigned on his behalf in Pennsylvania as the presidential race was coming to a close. That loyalty did not help Ernst last week when Republican senators selected their leadership team for the coming legislative session.
Ernst ran for chair of the Senate Republican Conference, the third-ranking position in the Senate Republican leadership, but lost to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The vote wasn’t close — Cotton won 35-18.
This will be the first time in six years Ernst is not part of the Senate Republican leadership team. Ernst’s committee assignments in the next Congress have not yet been announced.
It has been announced that Iowa’s senior senator, Chuck Grassley, will once again chair the Senate Judiciary Committee. He will also resume his role as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which will make him presiding officer of the Senate when the vice president isn’t present. It’s a largely ceremonial role, and by tradition the position is awarded to long-serving member of the majority party.
January will mark 44 years since Grassley was first sworn in as a senator. It will also mark the 66th consecutive year Grassley has served in elected office at either the state or federal level.
