WASHINGTON – President Trump signed an executive order Monday that takes steps to fundamentally and dramatically change how immigrants are treated, stripping them of birthright citizenship, declaring a national emergency at the southern border and sending in the military. .
Citing public safety and national security threats, President Trump said he would immediately end all illegal immigration at the border and invoke an 18th-century law to carry out his plan to remove people from the country without authorization. said.
In his inaugural address in the Capitol Rotunda, President Trump said, “Our government has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to protect America’s borders and, more importantly, our own people.” “I am doing so,” he said.
In the months leading up to his election and inauguration, President Trump bypassed the normal legislative process and promised to overhaul the immigration system and border security on “day one” through an executive order. Trump signed the executive order Monday night, hours after his noon inauguration.
Although the executive branch has broad authority over immigration matters, many of the president’s orders are certain to face swift legal challenges. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday challenging President Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
Under the leadership of Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, the architects of his first administration’s zero-tolerance policy that caused thousands of immigrant parents to be separated from their children, President Trump He promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in history. Mr. Trump’s efforts will be hampered without significant additional funding from Congress, where Republicans hold a slim majority.
Illegal border crossings have declined sharply over the past year, and current levels are the lowest since President Trump left office. The emergency declaration would allow Trump to free up federal funds to fund border wall construction, as he did in 2019.
In June, the Biden administration began effectively blocking most migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border. This restriction did not apply to people who were waiting for reservations to legally enter the country at official ports of entry.
On Monday, hundreds of asylum seekers learned that the phone app they used to make appointments, CBP One, had been shut down and their scheduled interviews cancelled. Tens of thousands of migrants are currently stranded in Mexico, some waiting more than six months for interviews. In recent months, more immigrants entered the U.S. legally with CBP One appointments than were arrested for entering the United States illegally.
Many of the executive orders President Trump signed on Monday reversed policies enacted by outgoing President Biden. One order eliminated the previous administration’s enforcement priorities that generally limited immigration arrests to recent border crossers, serious criminals and other national security threats. The other would disband an interagency task force set up by Biden to reunite families torn apart by Trump’s zero-tolerance policies. An additional 1,400 children remained separated as of April, according to a federal report on the task force’s progress.
“As commander in chief, there is no greater responsibility than to protect our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I will do,” Trump said. “We’re going to do it at a level that no one has seen before.”
Homan, who serves as President Trump’s “border czar,” said the new administration will continue to target immigrants with criminal records. But new sweeping rules make most people in the United States illegally subject to detention and deportation, creating a basis for so-called “collateral arrests” of non-criminal illegal immigrants during enforcement operations. It is possible that it will be built.
Another order would end a humanitarian program (significantly expanded by Biden) that granted temporary legal status and work permits to more than 1.5 million people. Biden this month extended legal recognition for nearly 1 million immigrants with Temporary Protected Status from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan and Ukraine. Without an extension, they would soon be affected by President Trump’s order.
Other orders reinstate Trump’s first-term policies that Biden canceled, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as “Remain in Mexico.” Under this policy, asylum seekers must remain across the border until their asylum cases are adjudicated.
President Trump also suspended refugee admissions for at least 90 days starting January 27, citing the “burden of new arrivals.” Last year, the United States resettled more than 100,000 refugees, the highest number in 30 years.
President Trump said he would end what conservatives call “catch-and-release,” the practice of releasing immigrants from detention while they await the conclusion of years-long cases in immigration courts.
There is not enough space for federal authorities to detain everyone in deportation proceedings. Last fiscal year, Congress funded 41,500 beds at a cost of $3.4 billion. As of December 29, more than 39,000 immigrants had pending deportation proceedings.
President Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order reinterprets the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to people born on U.S. soil, and excludes children born to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas. It is. The order directs federal agencies not to issue documents granting U.S. citizenship to such children.
Immigration reduction groups have long called for an end to birthright citizenship. Legal scholars argue that amending the constitution through executive order is illegal.
President Trump designated drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. He also specified the use of U.S. troops to “close the border.”
President Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that he would use the Alien Hostiles Act of 1798 to achieve his immigration goals, and he cited the law in his inaugural address.
“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, President Trump will take full advantage of the vast powers of federal and state law enforcement to exploit foreign gangs and criminal networks to commit devastating crimes on American soil. I will instruct the government to eliminate the existence of
The Alien Enemy Act of 1798 was last used during World War II to send people from Japan, Germany, and Italy to concentration camps, restricting immigration from countries considered enemies of the United States during the war. It allows the president to arrest, imprison, and deport people from the country. President Trump could use this to expedite deportations without going through the normally required legal process. But legal experts say courts will likely strike down Trump’s interpretation, which goes beyond what the law allows.
President Trump’s order designating cartels as terrorist organizations requires federal authorities to make “operational preparations for the implementation of my decision to invoke the Alien Enemies Act” within two weeks. Although the order does not specify whether President Trump has determined that such entities qualify under the law, it nevertheless expedites the deportation of persons who may be named in such an order. Immigration authorities are ordered to prepare facilities as necessary for this purpose.
Brad Jones, a political science professor at the University of California, Davis, said many of Trump’s first-term executive orders survived court challenges, including the border wall and Remain in Mexico. Jones said that because the Supreme Court has a conservative majority, challenges against him that go beyond its permissible authority could ultimately be dismissed.
“In my view, these executive orders essentially set the stage for the border to be considered a war zone,” he said.
In his second speech at Emancipation Hall, Trump supported border enforcement and praised Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has bused migrants to liberal states like New York and California. President Trump repeated his unsubstantiated claim that nearly every country in the world sends criminals to the United States, and said Mr. Abbott must deal with criminals himself. But President Trump suggested that that would soon change for Abbott, boasting about his promised border wall expansion.
“That wall will go up in no time,” he said.
The Trump administration is planning a major immigration raid in Chicago this week, but Homan told news outlets that officials are reconsidering the plan because leaked details put staff at risk. . Other large immigrant communities, including Los Angeles, may also be targeted in future raids.
In California, a 2018 law enacted in response to the Trump administration limits cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. The California Values Act prohibits local police from detaining a person for an extended period of time for transfer to immigration detention, but does not require federal agents to be notified of release in the event of certain felonies or felony convictions. is recognized.
Some local law enforcement leaders, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have shown a willingness to circumvent the law to help immigration officials carry out deportations. Attempts to circumvent the law will not be tolerated, California Bar. Gen. Rob Bonta said. “We stand ready to take action against law enforcement agencies that do not follow the law,” Bonta said Friday.
Bonta also said he was prepared to fight Trump in court. The California Department of Justice sued the first Trump administration more than 100 times.
“If he seeks to mobilize the National Guard or the military to participate in mass deportations, if he seeks to abolish the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, if it harms Americans, if he “If there is an attempt to attack our jurisdiction or our status on the immigration side, we will be ready to act from day one,” Bonta said.
Some California immigrants are already feeling threatened this month after Border Patrol agents arrested dozens of people around Bakersfield and questioned them on their way to work at hardware stores, gas stations and farms. I’m recruiting.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Humane Immigrant Rights Coalition in Los Angeles, said her organization held a vigil Tuesday night to create a safe space for immigrants to gather and learn more about President Trump’s first executive order. He said he organized it. She stressed that Los Angeles is considered a natural disaster area, so immigration officials should not carry out enforcement operations there.
“The Los Angeles community is concerned about what’s going to happen, but we’re not cowering in panic,” Salas said.
Castillo reported from Washington and Uranga from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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