Republican former US President Donald Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration if elected to a second four-year term on Nov. 5.
Here are some of the policies under consideration, according to Trump, his campaign and news reports:
Border Enforcement
Trump has said he would restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program, which forced asylum-seekers of certain nationalities attempting to enter the U.S. at the southern border to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases. The program was terminated by Democratic President Joe Biden, who ended his faltering reelection campaign in July, making Vice President Kamala Harris the candidate. Biden defeated Trump in 2020, pledging more humane and orderly immigration policies, but struggled to deal with record levels of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
Trump also would reinstate the COVID-19-era Title 42 policy, which allowed U.S. border authorities to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico without the chance to claim asylum, he told Time magazine in an interview.
He would use record border crossings and trafficking of fentanyl and children as reasons for the emergency moves, Time reported, citing comments from advisers.
Trump has said he will seek to detain all migrants caught crossing the border illegally or violating other immigration laws, ending what he calls “catch and release.” At a campaign event earlier this month, Trump said he would call on Congress to fund an additional 10,000 Border Patrol agents, a substantial increase over the existing force. Harris has criticized Trump for helping kill a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year that could have added 1,300 more agents.Trump focused on building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border during his first term and has pledged to close gaps in the border wall if elected. His administration built 450 miles (725 km) of barriers across the 1,954-mile (3,145-km) border, but much of that replaced existing structures. Trump criticized a Biden asylum ban rolled out last June and pledged to reverse it during a campaign event in Arizona. He said the measure would not adequately secure the border, even though it mirrored Trump-era policies to deter would-be migrants and has contributed to a steep drop in migrants caught crossing illegally. Trump also said at the campaign event that he would consider using tariffs to pressure China and other nations to stop migrants from their countries from coming to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mass Deportation
Trump has pledged to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, focusing on criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries.
During a rally in Wisconsin in September, Trump said deporting migrants would be “a bloody story,” rhetoric that sparked criticism from immigrant advocates.
Trump told Time he did not rule out building new migrant detention camps but “there wouldn’t be that much of a need for them” because migrants would be rapidly removed.
Trump would rely on the National Guard, if needed, to arrest and deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally, he said. When questioned, he also said he would be willing to consider using federal troops if necessary, a step likely to be challenged in the courts. Trump has also vowed to take aggressive new steps to deport immigrants with criminal records and suspected gang members by using the little-known 1789 Alien Enemies Act. Trump called for the death penalty for migrants who kill U.S. citizens or law enforcement officers at a rally in Aurora, Colorado, earlier this month.
Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s first-term immigration agenda, said in an interview last year with a right-wing podcast that National Guard troops from cooperative states could potentially be deployed to what he characterized as “unfriendly” states to assist with deportations, which could trigger legal battles.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance said in a New York Times interview published this month that deporting 1 million immigrants per year would be “reasonable.” Biden in the 2023 federal fiscal year outpaced Trump deportation totals for any single year — with a total 468,000 migrants being deported to their home countries or returned to Mexico by U.S. immigration authorities – and is on pace for even more this year, a tally that includes migrants returned to Mexico.
Travel bans
Trump has said he would implement travel bans on people from certain countries or with certain ideologies, expanding on a policy upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump previewed some parts of the world that could be subjected to a renewed travel ban in an October 2023 speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security.” During the speech, Trump focused on the conflict in Gaza, saying he would bar the entry of immigrants who support the Islamist militant group Hamas and send deportation officers to pro-Hamas protests.
Trump said last June he would seek to block communists, Marxists and socialists from entering the U.S.
Legal immigration
Trump said last year that he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrants living in the country illegally, an idea he flirted with as president.
Such an action would run against the long-running interpretation of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution and would likely trigger legal challenges. During his first term, Trump greatly reduced the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. and has criticized Biden’s decision to increase admissions. He would again suspend the resettlement program if elected, the New York Times reported in November 2023.
Trump has said he would push for a “a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values.” In his first term, he took steps to tighten access to some visa programs, including a suspension of many work visas during the COVID pandemic. The Trump campaign criticized a new Biden program that offers a path to citizenship to immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are married to an American citizen and have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade. Trump said on a podcast in June that he backed giving green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges or junior colleges, but Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt later said the proposal “would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
Trump has vowed to end Biden “parole” programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants with U.S. sponsors to enter the U.S. and obtain work permits, including Ukrainians and Afghans. He has called Biden’s programs an “outrageous abuse of parole authority.”
He would seek to roll back Temporary Protected Status designations, the New York Times reported, targeting another humanitarian program that offers deportation relief and work permits to hundreds of thousands. Trump tried to phase out most Temporary Protected Status enrollment during his first term, but was slowed by legal challenges. A federal appeals court in September 2020 allowed him to proceed with the wind-down, but Biden reversed that and expanded the program after taking office.
Family Separation
In a town hall with CNN last year, Trump declined to rule out resuming his contentious “zero tolerance” policy that led thousands of migrant children and parents to be separated at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
He defended the separations again in November 2023, telling Spanish-language news outlet Univision that “it stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands.” While Trump has refused to rule out reinstating a family separation policy, key allies who could potentially join a second-term administration are wary, Reuters reported. The Biden administration last October announced a settlement agreement with separated families that would offer them temporary legal status and other benefits while barring similar separations for at least eight years.
DACA
Trump tried to end a program that grants deportation relief and work permits to “Dreamer” immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, but the termination was rebuffed by the Supreme Court in June 2020. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration said it would not accept any new applications to the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and would explore whether it could again attempt to end it.
