MANILA, Philippines – President-elect Donald Trump undeniably tapped into a deep-seated fear among many Americans: the concern that immigrants — both legal and undocumented — were taking their jobs and driving down wages in the United States.
The convicted former president’s campaign framed immigration as a threat to the economic well-being of the average American worker. He capitalized on this anxiety by promising to tighten borders and reduce immigration.
This has struck fear especially after Trump’s stunning victory against Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party in the tight 2024 race for the White House. Individuals and human rights groups are extremely concerned that Trump’s return to power would signal the restoration of these harsh immigration policies that the administration of Joe Biden tried to dismantle.
To remind us of what might possibly be ahead, Rappler compiled Trump’s statements and plans on immigration that he announced or alluded to during his campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
1. ‘Largest’ deportation plan
Trump set the tone of his immigration stance when he said in September 2023 that he will “immediately terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration.”
Since then, Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation in US history. In an interview with TIME Magazine in April 2024, he tagged mass deportation as the best way to address the “new category of crime… called migrant crime.”
Trump clarified that there is no need to build new migrant camps because his administration will not be “leaving them in the country, we’re bringing them out,” although he is not ruling out anything when it comes to dealing with migrants. He believes that the “National Guard will do the job,” but added that he “would have no problem using the military… if [he] thought things were getting out of control.”
Trump adviser Stephen Miller said on X (formerly Twitter) in September 2024 that the administration will use a variety of resources “to carry out the largest domestic deportation in US history.” These include state and local partnerships as well as federal law enforcement and logistical support from the US Department of Defense.
2. Travel ban with extra ‘strong ideological screening’
Trump plans to broaden the travel ban he carried out during his first presidential term that blocked arrivals from mainly Muslim countries. This time, the ban will be “coming back even bigger than before and much stronger than before.”
“We don’t want people blowing up our shopping centers, we don’t want people blowing up our cities, and we don’t want people stealing our farms,” he said in a July 2023 speech.
In addition, according to a October 2013 report by CNN, Trump plans to implement “strong ideological screening of all immigrants to the United States.” He added that his administration would prevent “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs to get residency in our country.”
3. ‘Human wall’ at the border
While Trump eyes to finally complete the physical wall along America’s border with Mexico, he also is looking into creating a “human wall” to prevent individuals from “illegally” crossing into the border.
A story by the American news agency Associated Press quoted Trump as saying that he plans to “deploy thousands of soldiers and National Guard members.” He also said that his administration is “going to secure the border like never before, with military assets if necessary.”
The human wall is his planned reinforcement of the physical wall along the southern border of the US, a central promise of his 2016 presidential campaign. However, this plan was marred with logistical issues, including financing. Biden also revoked the executive order on the construction of these walls.
4. Ending birthright citizenship
Birthright citizenship — or a child automatically becoming a US citizen upon birth in the country — could see its end under the incoming Trump administration.
The president-elect in May 2023 said that ending birthright citizenship would part of a series of executive orders to be released on the first day of his administration. Trump claimed that this would “discourage future waves of illegal immigration” from exploiting this “misapplication of citizenship, and encourage illegal aliens in the US to return home,” according to a press release.
With this move, children of undocumented migrants will not be given automatic citizenship and “should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.” For children to be given automatic citizenship, at least one parent should be a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.
What Trump did during his presidency
The fears of Trump doubling down on his immigration policies are not unfounded given that you only need to remember what happened some five years ago to see what is at stake. His administration implemented actions that were tagged as anti-immigrant. Here are some of what he did, or attempted to do, during his presidential term:
1. Increased ICE enforcement and raids
Trump ramped up his crackdown on immigration during his presidency through the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These ICE operations mostly led to increased raids carried out in workplaces, as well as a high number of detained individuals.
In early 2017, Trump released an executive order that gave ICE more authority over undocumented migrants even without a prior criminal record. The agency then made at least 143,470 arrests that year, or a 30% increase from 2016 alone.
An analysis by online publication The Conversation of ICE data found an “increase in the number of ICE encounters — interviews, screenings and determinations of individuals’ citizenship, nationality, and lawful presence” between 2016 and 2018.
2. ‘Zero Tolerance’ family separation policy
The Trump administration in early 2018 implemented a “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation of migrant parents from their children once arrested at the border. This led to more than 2,300 children separated from their parents and placed in makeshift camps and facilities.
This action faced intense backlash from the public, forcing Trump to stop its implementation months later in June 2018.
But he eventually also issued in 2019 an order that removed the 20-day limit on the detention of undocumented migrant children, effectively allowing state agents to detain them for an indefinite period.
Then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet slammed these moves, saying that the “arbitrary separation of families constitutes an arbitrary and unlawful interference with family life and a grave violation of the rights of children.”
3. DACA termination attempt
Trump in 2017 attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an amnesty program that protected young immigrants brought to the US as children. This was implemented during the administration of Barack Obama to allow these children to work and study without fear of being deported.
The Trump administration, through then-attorney general Jeff Sessions, justified the move by tagging the program as unconstitutional and that it “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”
This would’ve affected at least 10,000 Filipinos in the US, according to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.
This move, however, was blocked by several legal cases and ultimately by a Supreme Court decision in 2020 which said that the administration failed to provide “a reasoned explanation for its action.” Biden reinstated the program in 2021.
4. Public charge rule vs welfare-seeking residency applicants
The Trump administration implemented a harsher interpretation of the “public charge” rule in 2019. Under this rule, applicants for temporary or permanent visas would be denied if they fail to meet the required income standards or if they rely on public assistance, including those related to welfare, food, public housing, and health.
When this was announced, the US government said that about 382,000 immigrants could be subjected to this review.
This specific provision was discontinued in 2019, and was fully rolled back in 2022 with the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas saying that “this action ensures fair and humane treatment of legal immigrants and their US citizen family members.” He added that the US government “will not penalize individuals for choosing to access the health benefits and other supplemental government services available to them.” – Rappler.com
