Fact check: Trump’s first-week immigration orders – what are the effects?
In his first week in office, President Donald Trump announced a national emergency at the southern border, ordered his administration to reinstate some of his first-term policies, and ended programs that allowed foreigners to enter the country. These policies ended programs that allowed people to enter the country.
Trump’s actions, such as suspending the refugee resettlement program, came into effect right away. Some cases, such as ending birthright citizenship, already face legal difficulties or will require additional funding and diplomatic agreements to be enforced. According to immigration experts, the actions are already having an impact on immigrants in the nation.
“What is particularly evident already about these actions is the confusion, fear, and uncertainty these policies are already evoking for immigrant families and their communities”, Thomas J Rachko, Jr, research manager at Georgetown University’s Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute, said.
PolitiFact’s MAGA-Meter is tracking the progress on 75 campaign promises Trump made during the presidential campaign, including several on immigration. What Trump did during his first week back in the White House, briefly, is shown below.
deployment of the military to the southwest border declared an “invasion.”
Trump  declared a national emergency at the southern border on his first day in office, laying the groundwork for his plan to deploy armed forces there to assist immigration authorities in preventing illegal immigration entry and re-establishing border barriers.
According to Trump’s declaration, “The Armed Forces must take all necessary steps to assist the Department of Homeland Security in achieving full operational control of the southern border.”
Following Trump’s order, the Department of Defense said it was sending 1, 500 ground personnel, helicopters and intelligence analysts “to support increased detection and monitoring efforts”.
Trump is also given the option of using the already-afforded Defense Department funds to fulfill his campaign promise to “finish the wall.” Barring the declaration, he would have to wait for Congress to give him the money, a less certain thing.
Ending laws and programs that make it legal for foreigners to enter the US
Trump says he supports legal immigration, but he signed , orders pausing or ending some programmes that let people legally enter the US.
He ended the CBP One app, which allowed users to schedule appointments at designated entry points and apply for asylum. Trump used this app to schedule the inspection of perishable cargo entering the US during his first term (Trump used it). The Homeland Security Department cancelled about 30, 000 appointments, The Washington Post reported.
Trump also ended a humanitarian parole program that allowed Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to enter legally and work without permission for at least two years. About 530, 000 people came in this way during Joe Biden’s administration, Homeland Security data shows.
Refugee programme: Since the refugee resettlement programme’s formalisation in 1980, the US has given people who are persecuted, or fear persecution, a haven, allowing them to move to the US legally and eventually become eligible for US citizenship. On his first day, Trump paused this programme indefinitely. He claimed that the US cannot take in a sizable number of refugees without compromising American resources and security.
Refugees must pass biometric and biographical background checks and be subjected to an interview with US Citizenship and Immigration Services personnel before entering the country.
Homeland Security and state secretaries can accept refugees case by case now that the program has been suspended. They are required to submit a report to Trump every 90 days, outlining how the US would benefit from resuming the refugee program.
Limited legal protections due to birthright citizenship
Trump signed an executive order restricting people’s right to citizenship when they are born in the US, in line with his campaign promise of 2024. If their mother is either temporarily or illegally resident of the US and their father is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident, according to Trump’s decree, they are not citizens.
Multiple states , sued Trump over the order’s constitutionality. On January 23, a federal judge blocked Trump’s order for 14 days saying its “harms are immediate, ongoing, and significant, and cannot be remedied in the ordinary course of litigation”.
Trump signing the first day of the order “tests the limits of the executive branch’s authority in the immigration sphere,” according to Erin Corcoran, executive director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University.
Relaunched Trump-era program requiring citizens to remain in Mexico while awaiting court hearings
Trump directed the US Department of Homeland Security to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program, which sent some asylum seekers to Mexico to await US immigration court proceedings. He started this policy in January 2019 and Biden ended it during his administration.
The immigration experts have previously stated that the US needs Mexico’s approval before starting the program, but the Homeland Security Department announced it would resume it on January 21.
President Claudia Sheinbaum stated in a press conference on January 22 that Mexico has refused to accept US asylum seekers. She added, however, that the government would offer options for returning to their home countries and humanitarian aid to migrants.
expanded deportation process without proper investigation
To start one of his cornerstone campaign promises, to carry out the largest deportations in US history, Trump’s Homeland Security Department expanded the use of expedited removal, a fast-track deportation process. Immigration agents can deport someone without a court hearing if they don’t have a strong asylum case in accordance with expedited removal.
People who have been living in the United States for more than two years can now be deported under the new policy, according to agents. Prior to this, agents only used expedited removal for people who had been detained within 100 miles of a US border and had been there for less than two weeks.
Additionally, Trump’s administration removed an order that forbade immigration and customs agents from deporting people from religious institutions and hospitals.
Source: Aljazeera
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