White Identity, Nativism Color Immigration Actions (2017 – present)
Donald Trump made immigration crisis and reform the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, appealing to the racist and nativist sentiments prevalent in communities throughout the US. Candidate Trump blamed many of the nation’s ills on immigrants, a narrative that resonated with many White, working-class voters struggling with unemployment and stagnant wages. An analysis of Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic, revealed a linkage between the economic concerns of these voters and their fears of cultural displacement and loss of status.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised sharp cuts to legal immigration, the construction of a wall across the entire US-Mexico border, and extreme vetting of all applicants for admission. Although the courts and Congress stalled and diminished some of the president’s ambitions, the Trump administration nonetheless persisted with a number of significant changes to the country’s immigration policies, even when those changes were unpopular with a majority of Americans.
Trump often confounded critics who failed to understand why he pursued policies that poll poorly in the general population, like ending DACA and separating families at the southern border. These critics seemed to ignore what may be a unifying feature among his many immigration initiatives: stopping the growth of the immigrant population and reducing the number of foreign-born people living in the US.
In 2015, the Pew Research Center estimated that by 2065, the non-Hispanic White population will fall to 46% of the total US population, a trend often cited as stoking the fears of Trump supporters. More recently, Stephen Miller, the person running point on President Trump’s immigration policies, was outed as a White supremacist by a former colleague and was profiled in a book that examines how he came to his extreme views.
Writing for FiveThirtyEight in 2018, Perry Bacon Jr. explored the question, “What is Really Behind Trump’s Controversial Immigration Policies?” and concluded that the goal of stopping the growth of the foreign-born population more clearly explains Trump’s policies than claims of enhancing national security or reducing crime. Bacon did not address the fears of job competition that, justifiably or not, have often driven the arguments against more open immigration policies. He also declined to state directly that the Trump policies are racist, although he acknowledges that they are tied to concerns about our national identity, and he noted that most immigrants today are (and will be in the future) from Asia and Latin America.
Peniel Ibe, writing in April 2020 for the American Friends Service Committee website, was more willing to go a step further. Noting that Trump’s policies “support a [W]hite nationalist agenda”, she identified a lengthy list of actions taken by the administration to support her claim. She also included a slightly shorter list of the administration’s pending or proposed actions. Taken as a whole, and not examined individually, it does appear that the Trump administration was intent on severely limiting immigration, something Stephen Miller acknowledged, and reducing the foreign-born population.
Since immigration policy has largely rested with the executive branch since the 1876 Supreme Court decision in Chy Lung v. Freeman, it was relatively easy for the Trump administration to exert its will. The Migration Policy Institute catalogued more than 400 executive actions, including executive orders, by the Trump administration during its first three-and-a-half years that targeted immigration. The following timeline includes just a sampling of the executive orders (EOs) and presidential proclamations issued.
2017
Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements
President Trump’s first immigration-related executive order expanded the geographic reach of the expedited removal program and increased the timeframe in which asylum seekers were vulnerable to detention and deportation without a formal hearing. The order also increased construction of detention facilities and initiated planning for the construction of a 2000-mile border wall and the hiring of 5,000 new border patrol agents.
2017
Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the US
Although the stated purpose of this EO was to promote greater security for the nation, the EO delivered on a campaign promise to ban Muslim immigration by suspending travel and immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Also known as the Muslim Travel Ban, it caused immediate chaos at US airports and incited anger among a large number of US allies and a wide array of organizations, including academic institutions, airlines, and technology companies. It took three versions of the order before it was upheld by the Supreme Court.
2017
Buy American and Hire American (BAHA)
The BAHA EO, promoted as an effort to “create higher wages and employment rates for workers in the United States, and to protect their economic interests” instead proved to be a mechanism to limit entry to the country by H-1B visas and green cards, according to Angelo Paparello, an attorney with almost 40 years’ experience in immigration law.
2017
Zero-Tolerance Policy and Family Separations
The Trump administration implemented the zero tolerance policy to deter future unauthorized border crossings, as increasing numbers of families were apprehended at the southern border: from just over 11,000 in 2011 to almost 100,000 in the first four months of the 2019 fiscal year. The policy required criminal prosecution for illegal entry of those who crossed the US – Mexico border without authorization. Guidelines established over the previous two decades, starting with the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997, determined how the children of detained adults had to be treated. Under these guidelines, children could not be detained in family immigration detention centers for more than 20 days. The zero tolerance policy, which led to longer-term detention of immigrant adults, resulted in the family separations widely reported in the media. The policy was formally brought to an end in June 2018 after facing national and international criticism.
The Congressional Research Service reported that thousands of children were separated from their families before and after the policy was announced. Several organizations have reported that family separations continued after the Trump administration claimed to have ended the policy.
2019
Record Low Refugee Limit
After capping the number of refugees permitted entry into the country in 2019 to 30,000, the Trump administration further limited refugee admissions to 18,000, the lowest cap since the refugee resettlement program began in 1980. Refugee admissions into the US have declined substantially during Trump’s presidency while the number of refugees worldwide has reached its highest level since World War II.
2019
Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System
Presidential Proclamation 9945 requires that applicants for immigrant visas must demonstrate that they will be covered by health insurance or be financially well-off enough to afford likely healthcare costs. Applies only to holders of immigrant visas issued on or after the date that this proclamation went into effect: November 3, 2019.
2020
A Fourth Travel Ban
Presidential Proclamation 9983, Improving Enhanced Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats, was a new travel ban that placed visa and entry restrictions on travelers from six countries: Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. This proclamation had little impact on many types of immigrants, but it did limit “follow on” immigration – that is, the immigration of family members related to an immigrant who has become a legal permanent resident or a citizen.
2020
Impact of COVID-19 on Immigration Policy
Through a series of executive orders and presidential proclamations from January 31 through August 2020, the Trump administration sharply limited immigration and immigration services, including enforcement, as the US struggled to contain the coronavirus. The combined impact on immigrants and their families has been severe. According to the American Immigration Council, tens of thousands of immigrants remain stuck in over-crowded jails, prisons, and detention centers as the courts that were to hear their cases either suspended activities or limited them because of the pandemic. At the same time, legislative COVID relief passed by Congress ignored the plight of millions of immigrant families who were facing an uncertain economic future.
