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Fact Check: Trump’s First Week Immigration Orders – What Are the Impacts? | News about Donald Trump

Fact Check: Trump’s First Week Immigration Orders – What Are the Impacts? | News about Donald Trump

President Donald Trump enacted some of his most controversial immigration promises in his first week in office, declaring a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, ordering his administration to restore some of his first-term policies and ending programs that allowed people to legally enter USA.

Some of Trump’s actions took effect immediately – such as suspending the refugee resettlement program. Others, such as the abolition of birthright citizenship, already face legal challenges or will require additional funding and enforcement of diplomatic agreements. Immigration experts say these actions send a clear message and are already impacting immigrants in the country.

“What is already particularly evident with these actions is the confusion, fear and uncertainty that these policies are already causing to immigrant families and their communities,” said Thomas J. Rachko Jr., research director at the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute at Georgetown University.

PolitiFact’s MAGA-Meter tracks progress on 75 campaign promises Trump made during the presidential campaign, including several on immigration. Here’s a sample of what Trump did in his first week back in the White House.

An “invasion” was announced to deploy troops on the southwestern border

On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, laying the groundwork for deploying military forces there to help immigration officials stop the entry of illegal immigrants and resume construction of border barriers.

“It is essential that the Armed Forces take all appropriate actions to assist the Department of Homeland Security in achieving full operational control of the southern border,” Trump’s statement said.

Following Trump’s order, the Defense Department said it was deploying 1,500 ground personnel, helicopters and intelligence analysts “to support enhanced detection and monitoring efforts.”

Trump’s declaration also authorizes him to use already allocated Defense Department money to fulfill his campaign promise to “finish the wall.” If not for the announcement, he would have to wait for Congress to give him the money, which is less certain.

Ended programs and policies that allow people to legally enter the US

Trump says he supports legal immigration, but he has signed orders halting or ending some programs that allow legal entry into the US.

CBP one: He ended the CBP One app, which allowed people to make appointments at official ports of entry to apply for asylum. (Trump launched this app during his first term, but it was used to schedule inspections of perishable cargo entering the US). According to The Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security canceled about 30,000 meetings.

Parole on humanitarian grounds: Trump also ended the Humanitarian Parole Program, which allows Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to enter legally and work with authorization for at least two years. Data from the Department of Homeland Security show that about 530,000 people arrived via this route during Joe Biden’s administration.

Refugee program: Since formalizing the refugee resettlement program in 1980, the United States has provided people who have been persecuted or fear persecution with a safe haven, enabling them to legally move to the United States and ultimately become U.S. citizens. On day one, Trump halted the program indefinitely. He said the United States cannot accept large numbers of refugees without risking the resources and safety of Americans.

Refugees are screened before being allowed to enter the U.S. and must pass biometric and biographical background checks, as well as a prior interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials abroad.

With the program suspended, the Department of Homeland Security and secretaries of state may accept refugees on a case-by-case basis. They must also submit a report to Trump every 90 days detailing whether resuming the refugee program will benefit the United States.

True to his 2024 campaign promise, Trump signed an executive order limiting birthright citizenship – the right of people to become American citizens if they were born in the US. Under Trump’s executive order, people born in the U.S. are not citizens if their mother is in the U.S. temporarily or illegally and their father is not a citizen or permanent resident.

Many states sued Trump over the constitutionality of the order. On January 23, a federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order for 14 days, saying the “damages are immediate, continuing and significant and cannot be remedied by ordinary judicial proceedings.”

Trump’s day-one signing of the executive order “tests the outer limits of the executive branch’s power in the realm of immigration,” said Erin Corcoran, executive director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

A Trump-era program requiring people to remain in Mexico while awaiting court hearings has been revived

Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to restore the “Remain in Mexico” program, which sent some asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico to await proceedings in U.S. immigration court. He started the policy in January 2019, and Biden ended it during his administration.

The Department of Homeland Security said it had resumed the program on Jan. 21, but immigration experts had previously said the United States needed Mexican approval to implement the policy.

On January 22, President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a press conference that Mexico had not agreed to accept American asylum seekers. However, she added that the government would provide migrants with humanitarian assistance and opportunities to return to their countries of origin.

Expanded rapid deportations without due process

To kick off one of his key campaign promises to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has expanded the use of expedited deportation, or an expedited deportation process. Under expedited deportation, immigration agents can deport people without a court hearing if they do not have a credible asylum case.

Under the new policy, agents can deport people living in the U.S. who cannot prove they have been in the country for more than two years. Previously, agents used expedited deportation only for people who had been in the U.S. for less than two weeks and who were held within 100 miles of the U.S. border.

The Trump administration also rescinded an order prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from carrying out deportations in schools, religious buildings and health centers.

Trump also directed the secretaries of homeland security and treasury to designate cartels and other groups as foreign “terrorist organizations.” The executive order could set the stage for Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to quickly deport non-citizens without due process if they come from a country at war with the US.