President's actions on immigration leaving many Valley residents wondering how it will affect them

Thursday, January 26, 2017
President Trump's recent actions on immigration leaving many Valley residents wondering how it will affect their lives
Trump's first executive order on immigration calls for the immediate construction of a wall along the US Mexico border.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Mexican national Wenceslao Mosqueda still remembers his life before coming to the United States.

"The people they don't think about how it's hard-- Our life in Mexico."

Mosqueda is one of many local people we spoke to who are concerned about the future as President Donald Trump works to secure America's borders.

"Beginning today the United States gets back control of its borders-- gets back its borders," said Trump.

Trump's first executive order on immigration calls for the immediate construction of a wall along the US Mexico border.

The Department of Homeland Security will also get more resources to crack down on undocumented immigrants.

The second order will give more power back to immigrations and customs enforcement and strip federal grant money from sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants.

Immigration attorney Jessica Smith Bobadilla said many of her clients fear deportation.

"If there's a lot of raids at employer sites and stores in heavily immigrant parts of our Valley; people with absolutely squeaky clean histories sometimes end up before an immigration judge and so we might be doing a lot of that."

A lot of the clients Bobadilla works with are farmworkers who migrate here for jobs.

"I also think it might impact agriculture, which has traditionally relied on undocumented labor for the Valley and other parts of the country."

The President of the United Farm Workers of America Union also weighed in, asking who is going to feed America if Mr. Trump fulfills his pledge. But the President is already moving forward on his campaign promises, saying they will start building the wall in a matter of months.

Mr. Trump said tax payers will initially front the bill for the wall but said Mexico will pay the United States back 100-percent.

Meanwhile, Mexican President Enrique Pena-Nieto has repeatedly said his country will not pay for a wall.