January 24, 2025 Dear John, The United States plunged into a new immigration reality this week, when President Donald Trump returned to office and immediately set in motion plans for mass deportations, called out the U.S. military for immigration duty, imposed restrictions that all but foreclose access to asylum at the border, and took on birthright citizenship. These first-day changes, part of a campaign intended to create “shock and awe,” represent early actions in a broad strategy to pivot U.S. immigration law and policy in ways that both return to and expand on Trump’s first term, Muzaffar Chishti and Kathleen Bush-Joseph write in a new U.S. Policy Beat article in the Migration Policy Institute’s Migration Information Source. Major changes at the starting gate include: - Declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Invoking the Alien Enemies Act, last used during World War II, to aid deportations.
- Proclaiming that future U.S.-born children with an unauthorized immigrant parent will not be U.S. citizens.
- Repudiating the Biden administration’s strategy to bring order to the U.S.-Mexico border, shutting down humanitarian parole programs and the CBP One app used to book appointments at a port of entry.
- Indefinitely halting refugee resettlement.
- Expanding priorities for deportation.
“Many of these actions are unprecedented and intended to mark a sharp break with the Biden administration. They send a loud signal that far-reaching border restrictions and creating an inhospitable environment for unauthorized immigrants are the administration’s highest priorities,” write Chishti and Bush-Joseph. Trump and his team will face significant headwinds, including resource limitations, an expected onslaught of litigation, and pushback from states and cities. Yet even if major components of the plan are never enacted, the actions are sure to create a climate of fear in which some unauthorized immigrants “self deport” and would-be migrants decide not to come to the United States. Notably, the administration has been largely silent on changes to the legal immigration system, aside from halting refugee resettlement, in a split from the first Trump term. Read the article, With “Shock and Awe,” the Second Trump Term Opens with a Bid to Strongly Reshape Immigration, to get up to speed: www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trump-second-term-begins-immigration. Stay on top of the latest twists and turns in U.S. immigration policy by subscribing to the monthly U.S. Policy Beat: bit.ly/USPolicySignUp. And for the collection of MPI’s work related to the first and second Trump terms, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/trump-immigration. | 
