President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has made immigration a mainstay of his campaign, has promised to launch a widespread crackdown on the first day of his second term.
Restricting both legal and illegal immigration has been a major focus of Trump's first four years in the White House, and he has leveraged the executive branch's vast powers over immigration to shape policy. Restructured and avoided the need for new legislation by Congress.
According to the Immigration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, Mr. Trump has announced 472 immigration measures, both large and small.
Some of them have survived legal challenges only in modified form. others were overthrown by his successors. But his aggressive actions and fiery rhetoric redefined American immigration policy. As he returns to the White House, the signature efforts of his first term offer insight into what lies ahead.
border
The Wall
Trump's most memorable campaign promise was to build an impenetrable barrier along the entire nearly 3,000-mile southern border and make Mexico pay for it.
The Trump administration announced it would have completed approximately 460 miles of border wall by the end of its term. Some were new, but most consisted of replacing, repairing, or expanding existing barriers.
After the wall was raised from 17 feet to 30 feet along some border areas, the number of migrants seriously injured and killed trying to scale the wall increased exponentially.
For Trump, the wall was a valuable and effective political tool.
“It was mostly rhetoric and a lot less on the ground,” said Louis Decipio, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine.
“He used the wall to convince people that there were simple solutions to problems that every previous president recognized as complex and requiring careful consideration,” DeSipio said. he said.
Some of the funding for Trump's wall was appropriated by Congress, and other funds were diverted from the Pentagon's budget. Mexico did not pay for any construction or repairs.
In his second term, Trump could declare a national emergency, move military assets to the border and free up funding to build more walls, which he has pledged to do.
family separation
In April 2018, the Trump administration introduced a “zero tolerance” policy at the border in an effort to stop a large number of arriving families from crossing the border illegally. As a result, approximately 3,000 children were separated from their parents.
The adult was criminally charged with illegal entry and jailed. Children were separated from them and sent to government facilities and foster homes across the country.
The policy drew condemnation not only from Americans but also from celebrities such as the Pope and former first lady Laura Bush, as images and audio of children crying and being abused by their parents spread online.
A federal court blocked the policy in late June 2018.
However, due to poor record-keeping by U.S. authorities, many parents and children have been separated for years, and some still live separately.
title 42
As the coronavirus pandemic gripped the United States, President Trump turned to vague public health rules known as Title 42 to close the border in March 2020, saying it was necessary to prevent the spread of the disease.
The rules allow authorities to quickly turn back migrants who cross the border. Previously, immigrants who touched American soil could apply for asylum and typically remained in the country until their cases ended in court.
“COVID-19 presents President Trump with the perfect opportunity to use Title 42 as a highly effective tool to expel immigrants and reduce border numbers,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow and attorney at the Migration Policy Institute. It gave me an opportunity.”
Tens of thousands of migrants were stranded in makeshift encampments in border towns controlled by Mexican cartels, with many falling victim to violence.
President Biden initially left Title 42 in place amid an increase in border crossings. When the administration moved to lift the ban in 2022, Republican-led states filed suit saying it was critical to border security. This measure was finally withdrawn in May 2023.
After a wave of humanitarian crises around the world and years of accumulated demand due to the pandemic, the number of people crossing rivers began to rapidly increase from the end of 2023, reaching a record high of 250,000 in December of the same year.
Since the Biden administration imposed new limits on asylum last June, the number of people entering the country has fallen sharply, and by November, the level was below where it was at the end of Trump's first term.
Trump is likely to re-invoke a public health emergency after taking office as he seeks to close the border again, people familiar with the discussions told the Times. They say advisers have been working in recent months to find the right disease to justify restrictions.
Domestic
DACA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), enacted by President Obama in 2012, provides protection from deportation and employment to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and meet eligibility criteria. permission is granted.
The program, created by executive action, was intended as a temporary fix until Congress passes legislation to address the fate of the immigrant group known as the Dreamers.
It has been transformative for hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth. Many have graduated from college, built careers, bought homes, and started families.
At its peak, about 800,000 people registered.
In September 2017, the Trump administration announced the end of the program, calling it unconstitutional. Trump's senior immigration adviser Stephen Miller and Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, spearheaded the effort.
The program has been challenged in court ever since. The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the Trump administration's approach to ending the program was illegal. But the decision does not settle whether the program itself is legal, and DACA remains embroiled in litigation, potentially preventing Dreamers from remaining in the country and working legally.
The program's fate remains uncertain as Mr. Trump prepares to take office.
In a recent interview, he indicated he was open to addressing the Dreamers situation, although he did not provide details. But ultimately, only Congress can craft and pass lasting solutions.
raid
Demographers and other experts estimate that when Mr. Trump took office in 2017, there were about 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
With limited resources, the Obama administration's enforcement efforts prioritized arresting illegal criminals living in the country's interior cities.
An analysis of Homeland Security data by the Migration Policy Institute found that under the Trump administration, the percentage of people arrested who had never been convicted of a crime doubled.
“Everyone was a target,” Chishti said. “When I went to work in the morning, there was no guarantee that I would be able to get back to my children.”
Thomas D. Homan, a former senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official named by Trump as the new “border czar,” said raids under the new administration would target criminals, but the possibility That others who have not been excluded will be swept away.
legal immigration
muslim ban
Just a week into his administration, Trump signed an order immediately banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries, citing national security concerns. The order, which became known as the “Muslim Ban”, caused chaos at airports.
Travelers from affected countries, including permanent residents of the United States, were detained upon arrival. Their families, who were waiting for them, scrambled to secure their release with the help of volunteer lawyers who landed at the airport.
Within hours, the order faced litigation.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld the third version, ruling that the president had the power to restrict immigration. Under this version of the ban, the U.S. barred citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, as well as North Korea and Venezuela, from entering the country. Obtaining the exemption was an arduous process.
President Biden reversed Trump's ban on his first day in office, clearing the way for thousands of people to be reunited with their loved ones in the United States. Many of them were refugees who had been waiting for years to join their relatives.
visa
The Trump administration has made it more difficult for foreign nationals to legally enter the United States by imposing additional checks and more closely scrutinizing renewal applications by those already in the country.
Trump signed an executive order in 2017 that increased scrutiny of applications for the high-skilled worker visa, known as H-1B, and said the program was rife with fraud and harmful to American workers. he claimed.
Denials of H-1B applications were primarily made to technical workers, reaching a high of 24% in fiscal year 2018.
In a turn of events, Trump has recently praised the program and defended it despite criticism from other Trump allies, including Steve Bannon, who served in the first Trump administration. He agreed with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. .