WASHINGTON — President Trump took steps Monday to fundamentally and drastically change how the nation handles immigration, saying he would sign executive orders to ramp up deportations, declare a national emergency at the southern border and deploy military troops there.
Trump said he would immediately halt all illegal entry at the border, adding that he would invoke an 18th-century law to carry out his plan to rid the country of people here without authorization.
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders or, more importantly, its own people,” Trump said in his inauguration address in the Capitol rotunda.
In the months leading up to his election and inauguration, Trump promised to overhaul the immigration system and border security on “Day 1” through executive orders in a sidestep of the regular legislative process. At his noontime inauguration ceremony, Trump said he would sign the executive orders later Monday.
The executive branch has expansive authority on matters of immigration, but many of the president’s orders are certain to face swift legal challenge.
Trump has pledged the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, to be carried out under the direction of Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, architects of his first administration’s zero-tolerance policy that led to thousands of migrant parents being separated from their children. Trump’s attempts will be hampered without substantial additional funding from Congress, where Republicans hold slim majorities.
Illegal border crossings have fallen sharply over the last year, with current levels the lowest they’ve been since Trump left office. The emergency declaration allows Trump to unlock federal resources to fund construction of the border wall, as he did in 2019.
In June, the Biden administration began effectively blocking most migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border. The restrictions didn’t apply to those who waited for appointments to enter legally at official ports of entry.
On Monday, hundreds of asylum seekers learned that use of CBP One, a phone app through which they made the appointments, had ended and their scheduled interviews had been canceled. Tens of thousands of migrants, some of whom had waited more than six months for an interview, are now stranded in Mexico. In recent months, more migrants had entered legally with CBP One appointments than those who were arrested after entering the U.S. illegally.
“As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” Trump said. “We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before.”
Another order would designate drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
Other orders will bring back policies from Trump’s first term that Biden had discontinued, such as Remain in Mexico. Under that policy, asylum seekers must stay across the border as their asylum cases are being adjudicated.
Trump said he would end what conservatives refer to as “catch and release,” the practice of releasing migrants from custody while they await conclusions to what are often years-long cases in immigration court.
There is not enough space for federal authorities to detain all those in deportation proceedings. Last fiscal year, Congress funded 41,500 beds at a cost of $3.4 billion. As of Dec. 29, more than 39,000 immigrants were being detained pending deportation proceedings.
Trump said he would use the U.S. military for border security efforts.
“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil,” Trump said.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last used during World War II to send people from Japan, Germany and Italy to internment camps, allows the president to arrest, imprison or deport immigrants from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime. Trump could use it to conduct rapid deportations without the typically required legal processes. But legal experts say courts would probably strike down Trump’s interpretation as beyond what the law allows.
Brad Jones, a political science professor at UC Davis, noted that many executive orders during Trump’s first term withstood court challenges, including those on the border wall and Remain in Mexico. With a conservative Supreme Court majority, challenges to him overstepping permissible powers may ultimately be knocked down, Jones said.
“These executive orders are, in my view, essentially setting the stage to think of the border as a war zone,” he said.
During a second speech in Emancipation Hall, Trump praised Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who has supported a crackdown at the border and bused migrants to liberal states such as New York and California. Trump repeated unfounded claims that nearly every country in the world was sending criminals to the U.S., saying Abbott had to deal with them himself. But, bragging about his promised border wall expansion, Trump signaled that soon Abbott’s situation would change.
“That wall will go up so fast,” he said.
The Trump administration has been planning a large immigration raid in Chicago this week, but Homan told news outlets that officials are reconsidering their plans because the leaked details put agents at risk. Other large immigrant communities, including Los Angeles, could be targeted in future raids.
In California, a 2018 law enacted in response to Trump’s first administration limits state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The California Values Act prevents local police from holding someone for extra time for transfer to immigration custody, but allows them to notify federal agents of a person’s release if they have certain felonies or high-level misdemeanor convictions.
Some local law enforcement leaders, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, have signaled a willingness to circumvent the law to help immigration agents carry out deportations. Attempts to circumvent the law will not be tolerated, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said. “We’re prepared to take action against any law enforcement agency that doesn’t follow the law,” Bonta said Friday.
Bonta said he also stands ready to fight Trump in court. The California Department of Justice sued the first Trump administration more than 100 times.
“If he tries to invoke the National Guard or the military to participate in his mass deportations, if he seeks to end birthright citizenship — a constitutional right — and that harms U.S. citizens, if he tries to attack sanctuary jurisdiction and status on the immigration side, we’re ready to act on day one,” Bonta said.
Some California immigrants are already on edge after Border Patrol agents carried out dozens of arrests around Bakersfield this month, questioning people at Home Depot, gas stations and on their way to work on farms.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said the organization has organized a vigil Tuesday night to create a safe space for immigrants to gather and learn more about Trump’s initial executive orders. She emphasized that because Los Angeles is considered a natural disaster area, immigration agents should not be conducting enforcement operations there.
“The community of Los Angeles is concerned by what is coming, 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.
