Former President Donald Trump is preparing to magnify his initial immigration crackdown if he returns to power in 2025. His intentions include launching a large-scale round-up of undocumented immigrants living in the United States without legal permission and detaining them in vast camps until expulsion procedures are completed. Plans for restricting legal and illegal immigration are also part of this expansion, with measures to ban entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and block asylum claims on the basis of health concerns.
Accompanied by the relocation of federal agents, deputization of local law enforcement, and involvement of National Guard soldiers, Trump aims to increase the pace of deportations. He is also considering reallocating funds from the military budget to facilitate the mass expulsion of immigrants. With references to the historical “Operation Wetback”, Trump envisions conducting the largest domestic deportation operation, emphasizing the extensive scale of his plans.
In a potential second term, Trump’s immigration measures go beyond targeting undocumented immigrants and extend to cancellations of visas, revocation of protected status, and an ideological screening of visa applicants based on their stances. Temporary protective status and other humanitarian-based prerogatives would also be stripped away, affecting thousands of Afghans and people living in the United States due to other humanitarian reasons.
Further, Trump intends to challenge the concept of birthright citizenship, ordering citizenship-affirming documents to be withheld from babies born to parents living in the country without legal permission. The campaign’s strategy, according to Trump’s aides, is designed to rely on existing statutes largely or by employing an array of tactics of overwhelming proportions to bypass legal opposition and steamroll their way through a migration crackdown.
Trump’s policies once labeled as authoritarian and detrimental by critics seem to be gaining traction, fueled by the ongoing migrant crisis, the frustration of voters over the handling of immigration, and deeper judicial leanings towards conservatism. With a second opportunity to implement his harsh immigration agenda and possessing a more seasoned team, Trump is in a better position to carry out his far-reaching immigration directives and to detract challenges from any opposition. The path towards the expansion of his anti-immigration stance has demonstrated a trend of increasing severity in his rhetoric, fostering a foundation for a potent resurgence of his prior immigration efforts.
