An “invasion”. During the campaign, this is how Donald Trump described the encounters of millions of migrants at the southern border during Joe Biden’s presidency. During his inaugural address on the 45th, and now the 47th, the president echoed the same sentiments, but this time with a note Victory. “For American citizens, January 20, 2025 is Emancipation Day,” he shouted.
The idea that America is being Invaded It has become the defining theme of Trump’s immigration policy. Hours after his inauguration, the president issued ten executive orders on immigration and border control to “repel the catastrophic invasion of our country.” This is despite encounters at the border being at their lowest levels in four years, thanks to Mexico’s increased enforcement of asylum restrictions implemented last year. Executive actions generally fall into three categories: reversing Biden’s policies and restoring Trump’s first-term plans, flashy things meant to show toughness, and more extreme actions that range from the likely illegal to the blatantly unconstitutional.
In the first set, Trump issued a sweeping order modeled after one from his first term aimed at increasing incarceration, forcing states to take back their citizens, enlisting local police to help enforce immigration laws and punishing sanctuary cities by withholding federal funds, among other things. Things. He intends to reinstate Remain in Mexico, a policy introduced in 2019 that forced migrants to wait on the other side of the border while their asylum claims were adjudicated. But because Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, would have to agree – and has already registered her opposition – this is more a signal of intent than an immediate policy change. During the election campaign, Trump promised a closure Customs and Border Protection The first, a government app created by the Biden administration that allows migrants to schedule an appointment to apply for asylum. Migrants waiting for these appointments on the Mexican side of the border found their meetings abruptly canceled once Trump was sworn in.
During his first term, the number of refugees transported to America declined sharply. This time he has completely suspended all refugee resettlement for at least four months. According to Reuters, shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the flights of nearly 1,700 Afghans who had been allowed to resettle in America were cancelled. Another order increases scrutiny of immigrants and directs agencies to determine which countries to ban travel from, something that may sound eerily familiar to those who remember Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries nearly eight years ago.
Next, think about policies that seem strict but may not change often. The same order that was discontinued Customs and Border Protection One also calls for physical border barriers, detention and deportation. This is “just a call to enforce the laws that already exist,” says Julia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank. Additionally, Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border, allowing the Secretary of Defense to send troops to help secure the border with Mexico. This is hardly unprecedented. George W. Bush (Operation Jump Start) and Barack Obama (Operation Phalanx) did something similar. Federal law limits soldiers’ roles in Internal Affairs to non-law enforcement activities, such as transportation and logistical support, rather than to actually apprehending immigrants. Trump’s order indicates that he does not intend to cross that line. The national emergency also unlocks construction funds from the Department of Defense to fortify the border wall, a move the president also made in 2019.
This leaves out the more extreme orders. The new president began the long process of designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations by arguing that they “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Some Republicans have wanted this for more than a decade. The troubling part of this order is directing senior officials to prepare for the possibility of Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act. This law is the only part of the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in 1798 when America was in conflict with France, that has not been repealed or allowed to lapse. It allows the president to detain and deport citizens of countries with which America is at war. It was last used to detain Germans, Italians and Japanese during World War II, hardly a proud moment in American history. However, America is not at war, and the drug cartels are not sovereign countries, even if they control some territory.
Here, Trump’s talk about the “invasion” becomes more than just rhetoric. Portraying cartels as terrorist organizations invading America is intended to legitimize his use of the law — although it is doubtful that the courts would view it that way. Trump argues that if America is being invaded, he can prevent anyone from crossing the border, which in effect means suspending asylum until he decides the invasion is over.
Trump also decided that the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” is up for debate. He announced that starting next month, children born to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents will be denied passports. The executive order applies not only to children of illegal immigrants, but also to people living in America on work or student visas. To justify this, Trump says that all foreigners are not “actually subject to the jurisdiction” of her government. Since the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, which granted citizenship to Native Americans who belong to sovereign tribes, only foreign diplomats have been considered immune from U.S. law under that provision.
This executive order seems unlikely to survive the courts. But it can be very annoying for new parents in the meantime. If implemented, children born in America would become illegal “immigrants” when they left the womb. US birth certificates do not include information about parents’ nationalities, so it is unclear exactly how Trump expects officials to gather the information needed to deny passports. However, this is exactly what the president promised he would do.■
Stay on top of American politics with the we shortOur daily newsletter containing quick analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and balancea weekly note from our Lexington columnist examining the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.
