As published in the Immigration Daily on August 13, 2024
What is a second Donald Trump presidency shaping up to look like? Will Trump stop and smell the roses, happy that he is back in the White House and ease back into the routine of the Oval Office? One would hope for a mellower and happier Trump – that will unfortunately not be happening. He already has a playbook for action in the first 180 days in office to bring the nation back to the end of first Trump presidency. Although Mr. Trump denies knowing anything about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 900 odd page document, “Mandate for Leadership”, https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf, those who worked on the document include a number of former Trump officials and aides. A pattern with former president Trump is his transactional character, saying whatever he believes in the moment will help him including currently backing off on the abortion issue, making comments favoring electric vehicles now that Elon Musk is supporting his campaign financially (the Wall Street Journal reported the contribution size as $45 million per month, which Mr. Must later denied) when Trump previously said that Joe Biden’s encouraging the transition to electric vehicles would result in an economic “bloodbath” in the US economy, and now promising not to cut a penny from Social Security or Medicare after saying in March 2024 that there was a lot that could be done with entitlements in terms of cutting. So it is a long stretch to believe that he knows nothing of the report. On credibility, the Washington Post counted 30,573 false or misleading statements during Mr. Trump’s first tour of the White House.
On immigration, the main topic of this article, Mr. Trump and his advisors have promised a massive deportation effort aiming to remove as many as 20 million people from the US through forced expulsions and deportation camps. He has said that under his leadership, they would use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, including deputizing local police officers, and not ruling out the possibility of building new detention camps for processing deportations.
The enmity of Mr. Trump to immigrants has been astounding, saying that they poison the blood of the nation or that they come from shithole African countries or characterizing Mexican border crossers as rapists and criminals.
Specific proposals of the Heritage Foundation document include:
- Ending the ability of US citizens to bring most classes of family over that they are able to presently sponsor.
- Ending the Diversity Visa program under which persons without sponsors or US family members are able to have a shot at permanent residence through a lottery program, bringing diverse people from many countries into the US.
- Revamping the H-1B program to bring in only the “best and brightest” at the highest wages while simultaneously ensuring the US workers are not being disadvantaged by the program.
- Capping and phasing out the H-2A Visa program for agricultural seasonal workers although also presenting an opposition argument.
- Consider phasing out the H-2B visa program for nonagricultural seasonal workers, and ensuring that the DHS Secretary will not use his or her discretion to increase the number of such visas above the statutorily set limits although also presenting an opposition argument.
- Move USCIS to strive to increase opportunities for premium processing to expedite processing times since it provides an opportunity for a significant influx of money into the agency which is not currently available.
- Bring back every rule related to immigration that was issued during the Trump administration and canceled during the Biden administration.
- Examine and consider withdrawing or overturning every immigration decision rendered by the Attorney General during the Biden administration.
- Target lawyers that the government labels as advancing completely meritless arguments before the immigration courts.
- Instruct the State Department to allow national security concerns to dominate over diplomatic concerns in issuing visas under the Diversity Visa program, F student visa program, and J exchange visitor visa program – and to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from “enemy nations”.
- Refocus Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) back on immigration offenses.
- End ICE’s use of termination and administrative closure of cases in the immigration courts.
- Instruct USCIS that the focus is not on giving benefits, but to return focus on vetting, examining the base eligibility of applicants, and fraud detection.
- Take regulatory action to limit the classes of aliens eligible for employment authorization.
- Prohibit the use of parole except in matters that are certified by the DHS Secretary for humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons – with the prohibition on the use of parole in any categorical circumstance.
- Restrict prosecutorial discretion.
- Withdraw and reissue a new regulation on criteria to determine which applicants for immigration are considered to pass the public charge requirement.
- Repeal TPS (Temporary Protected Status) designations for persons from countries in distress.
- Move Congress to permanently authorize E-Verify and make it mandatory although it is far from a perfect program.
These are some of the main changes in the field of immigration to be pursued in a second Trump presidency. The rapidity of the changes promises to be breathtaking. A new Trump administration would try to overwhelm opposition by the sheer number of immediate actions in the field. Of note is that the document would supercharge the power of the presidency in immigration and other fields by calling for the replacement of much of the federal work force with political appointees, who could be hired and fired at will.
Aside from the venom, immigrants – even undocumented immigrants – are beneficial to the country economically, culturally, and civilly. A number of studies over the years including one just conducted by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in July 2024, “Effects of the Immigration Surge on The Federal Budget and the Economy”, concluded that a surge of immigrants already here and expected to come between 2021-2026 would lower the federal deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade; that as most of the population would be of working age, they would draw less in terms of federal, state and local benefits although the CBO report did not take into account state and local costs; that they would pay $788 billion in taxes and generate $387 billion of extra federal revenue through their effects on the overall economy. This follows a number of articles over the years extolling the beneficial effects of increased immigration on the country’s economy. Culturally, immigrants have always enriched the melting pot of America in bringing their diverse languages, ways of living, food, religions, and points of view. And despite Mr. Trump’s eagerness to highlight every instance of immigrant crime, crime statistics show that immigrants commit crimes in far less numbers and percentages those of the general American populace. A study published by researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2020, Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens (wisc.edu) found that, compared to undocumented immigrants, U.S. citizens were:
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- Twice as likely to be arrested for violent felonies.
- Two-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested for felony drug crimes.
- Over four times more likely to be arrested for felony property crimes2.
The US requires a President who is able to look at facts and not distort them for his or her personal ambition and political aims. A steady hand promoting the interests of the country is a necessity over a President frustrated in the fine details of governing and making wild stabs of decision-making based upon whatever is in his or her mind at the present moment. Considered decision-making based upon what is best for the country and not promoting a political agenda right or left is the mark of what will be a great President. From promised mass deportation efforts to the Heritage Foundation’s planned 180 days sprint to enact restrictive rules in immigration that have no benefit to the country, there is good cause to doubt that a second term for Donald Trump will lift the country.