Trump Readies Week One Immigration Blitz
President-elect Donald Trump is eager to use week one to show his supporters he is making good on his signature issue: immigration.
Trump’s emphasis as he enters the Oval Office on Monday is sending a loud signal that the border is closed to illegal crossings and that anyone who is living in the U.S. unauthorized, especially those who have committed crimes, is not safe from deportation, according to seven people familiar with the planning, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations and their expectations about Trump’s first week. He’ll do so through a slew of executiv… Read moree orders and actions, launching the process of resurrecting policies from his first term, shredding Biden administration immigration policy and taking what Trump officials have labeled the “handcuffs” off of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Trump’s team has been crafting a national emergency declaration, a move designed to unlock additional authorities and resources to follow through on the incoming president’s promise to secure the border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, according to four of the people. The president-elect’s initial swath of executive orders will also signal the end of catch and release — the release of migrants into a U.S. community while they await their immigration court hearings — and expand a fast-tracked deportation authority known as “expedited removal.”
He is also expected to forge ahead with directing agencies to begin the process of restoring Remain in Mexico, a first-term policy that required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be processed. And his team is still deliberating a designation of drug cartels as terrorist organizations, resurfacing a policy that never came to fruition in his first term, two of the people said.
The Trump administration is not expected to attempt to reinstate a public health authority known as Title 42 in its early weeks, as it would take time for officials to determine whether there’s another health issue they could use to justify the measure. Title 42 allowed border agents to immediately expel migrants on public health grounds. But transition officials are planning measures that will go beyond President Joe Biden’s June border crackdown, further restricting asylum outside of official ports of entry, according to five of the people. The Justice Department is also expected to have a hand in the incoming efforts to clamp down on asylum, as Trump transition officials work to avoid the same legal pitfalls from the first administration.
