U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off his sweeping immigration crackdown on Monday, tasking the U.S. military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on U.S. soil.
Declaring illegal immigration a national emergency, Trump ordered the Pentagon to provide support for border wall construction, detention space and migrant transportation, and empowered the secretary of defence to send troops to the border as needed.
Trump called for his administration to reinstate his “remain in Mexico” program, which forced non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their U.S. cases.
Shortly after the inauguration, U.S. border authorities said they had shut down outgoing president Joe Biden’s CBP One entry program, which had allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. legally by scheduling an appointment on an app. Existing appointments were cancelled, leaving migrants stunned and unsure of what to do.
Daynna del Valle, a 40-year-old Venezuelan, spent eight months in Mexico waiting for an appointment that would have arrived on Tuesday. In that time, she worked at a nail salon but earned so little she barely managed to send any money back to her mother in Colombia, a cancer survivor who needed medical treatment for her blood pressure.
“I’m lost,” she said. “I don’t know what to do, where to go.”
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House after promising to intensify border security and deport record numbers of migrants. He criticized Biden for high levels of illegal immigration during the Democrat’s presidency, even though Biden angered some members of his own party by toughening policies that severely limited the right to apply for asylum. Mexico also stepped up enforcement, and the number of migrants caught crossing illegally fell dramatically.
Trump’s influence helped kill a bipartisan bill in Congress early last year that sought to address some of the longstanding and newer issues the U.S. faces with an influx at the border. Once a magnet for individual Mexicans seeking employment, in recent years entire families and increasing numbers of Central and South American asylum seekers have made sometimes perilous trips to seek entry in the U.S.
The result is yearslong backlogs at asylum court. But on Monday, the nascent Trump administration took steps to gain control of the U.S. Justice Department immigration courts, firing four top immigration court officials, three sources familiar with the matter said.
‘We were 1 day away’
Republicans say large-scale deportations are necessary after millions of immigrants crossed illegally during Biden’s presidency. There were roughly 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally or with a temporary status at the start of 2022, according to a U.S. government estimate, a figure that some analysts now place at 13 million to 14 million.
“As commander-in-chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” Trump said in his inaugural address.
Trump’s critics and immigrant advocates say mass deportations could disrupt the economy, split families and cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal court filing on Monday that Trump’s decision to end the CBP One program removed the only avenue to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, an opening salvo by the civil rights group to fight Trump’s agenda in court.
One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first executive orders declared a national emergency at the border with Mexico, which will see the military deployed and the deportation of millions of undocumented migrants.
Honduran migrant Denia Mendez’s phone started buzzing with news that the app she had used to book her U.S. asylum appointment, scheduled for Tuesday, was down.
Mendez, a 32-year-old single mom, fled with her daughter Sofia and son Isai, both young teens, after a gang member began to extort her.
“We were one day away,” Mendez said in disbelief as she talked through her options with other migrants, many Venezuelans.
Legal challenge expected for birthright citizenship move
In his order focused on so-called “birthright citizenship,” Trump called on U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children without at least one U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent, applying the restrictions in 30 days.
His order prompted the swift filing of a lawsuit in federal court in New Hampshire by the ACLU and other groups, who argued that Trump’s order violated the right for anyone born in the United States to be considered a citizen enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
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“Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” said Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, in a statement.
Canada does not offer a formal guarantee to children born in the country, though in most cases citizenship is granted, including in a recent case involving Russian spies that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
In other orders, Trump suspended U.S. refugee resettlement for at least three months and ordered a review of security to see if travellers from certain nations should be subject to a travel ban.
The Republican president rolled back existing guidance for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers that prioritized serious criminals and broadened the scope of their enforcement, including targeting migrants with final deportation orders, a move that could help ramp up removals.
Trump also kicked off a process to designate criminal cartels as foreign terrorists organizations and to utilize a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act against foreign gang members.