President-elect Donald Trump has promised to begin his new term by starting “the largest deportation program in American history,” aiming to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Aaron Morris — executive director of Immigration Equality, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting LGBTQ+ immigrants through legal services and litigation — has said it’s already preparing to combat Trump’s plans.

“Unfortunately, we have survived and thrived through a previous Trump administration, so there are certain expectations that we will have, and steps he will take, that will hurt both immigrant communities at large and also target LGBTQ immigrants,” Morris told Gay City News. “We are preparing various strategies and mapping out possibilities to stop harm from happening.”

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Trump has pledged to reinstate his ban on immigration from majority-Muslim countries. He threatened to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same law used to justify the internment of Japanese and German Americans during World War II, to put millions of immigrants in internment camps. He has also insinuated that he may deport naturalized citizens and the undocumented parents of children who gained birthright citizenship by being born in the United States.

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Morris says he expects Trump to issue “sweeping executive orders that overreach his legal authority” during his first 100 days in office. Those orders will trigger court challenges that may take months to sort out, but they will also create fear, confusion, and anti-immigration sentiment that may endanger immigrants and people of color.

While Morris says he and his organization disagreed with the immigration and deportation policies of President Joe Biden, Immigration Equality at least maintained an “open dialogue” with the administration. Morris expects his organization to play a much more “defensive” role in the second Trump administration, similar to the role his organization played during Trump’s first.

Despite Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, his and Biden’s records on immigrant deportations have been mixed. Millions more Central and South Americans have attempted border crossings during Biden’s presidency than during Trump’s, and Biden deported, returned, or expelled millions more of these immigrants than Trump did, according to The Washington Post. However, Trump deported hundreds of thousands of more undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. than Biden did.

Even though Biden deported more immigrants than Trump, he also repeatedly tried to protect undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, prioritizing the removal of immigrants deemed as public safety threats and pursuing efforts to create an easier pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants married to U.S. citizens.

In contrast, Trump has repeatedly used racism and fascist rhetoric to demonize darker-skinned immigrants as rapists, murderers, and thieves who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has also appointed anti-LGBTQ+ white nationalist Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy, a man who declared during Trump’s re-election campaign that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

Trump’s deportation plan would break up law-abiding families that have been living, working, and paying taxes in the U.S. for decades. This would not only cause the U.S. to lose an estimated $100 billion a year in taxes paid by immigrants, but it would also massively destabilize the agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries, all of which rely on immigrant labor.

“In some ways, [Trump’s victory was] shockingly disappointing given the ramifications of what is going to happen to the queer community and immigrant community,” Morris said.

“Stay strong,” he added. “We have weathered this storm before. We will do our part to chip away at everything Donald Trump will do, but we need people to open their homes, to open their government… People can see the storm coming. People are going to be very afraid. At most, his administration will last four years.”

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