400 Days and Hundreds of Changes
Since January 2025 the United States has seen a fundamental shift from population expansion to one of aggressive restriction and enforcement. Virtually every aspect of migration policy and practice has been altered. Many changes have been deemed unlawful and some unconstitutional, but the Administration’s aims continue to drive a new era in migration marked by “extreme vetting.” Currently, the US is home to 51.9 immigrants with approximately fourteen million unauthorized. Eleven million of these immigrants arrived between 2020-25 with the last two years being the largest increase in US history.
Promising secure borders was central to the President’s election Going well beyond that one priority, he has issued 225 Executive Orders, with scores ending long- standing practices—with many aimed at limiting admissions and removing “criminal aliens.” An initial declaration of a “national emergency” and invoking a law of 1798 were given as the legal justification. Changes include raids across the country by federal armed and masked officers of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), supplemented with staff from various federal agencies who, along with minimally trained recruits, have produced vast increases in detention. The White House goal is 1 million deportations in a year.
“73% of ICE detainees have no criminal record and most crimes of these purported ‘criminal aliens’ are minor offenses such as traffic violations.”
Deaths of American citizens at protests and those in dehumanizing detention centers (hurriedly repurposed warehouses) have built legal and political resistance. Aggressive removal of non-criminals has prompted large citizen protests. The public outcry has produced very little change of law or restraint of ICE due in part to a supportive Supreme Court, one of the least active Congresses in decades, and the Republican Party holding power in all three branches of the government.
A protest in Denver, Colorado, USA. Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash.
Changes also include stricter rules of self-sufficiency, harsher standards for current settled refugees and substantial reduction of asylum processing and judicial review (though there is a total backlog of over 3.5 million pending asylum cases). New fees, electronic submissions, collection of biometric data and the simultaneous reduction of consular service and immigration judges has caused a drop of international migrants to the US from 2.7 to 1.3 million in one year. An immigration ban is in place impacting those from 75 countries.
The Administration has tested changing birthright citizenship, vast increases in private jailing at vastly overcrowded detention centers, and expedited removals to third countries. Under a law allowing tattoos and other unreliable evidence, 250 Venezuelan men were sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador based on a new interpretation of a seldom used law that was supported by a Presidential Proclamation rather than judicial review. The US Refugee Program has been reduced to almost nothing, though a group of white farmers from South Africa have been accepted. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has been terminated for 1 million migrants from varied countries, predominantly those of the global south.
Immigrant integration endeavors have ended at the federal level but in most states and through many non-profits, education, employment and naturalization programs have continued. The rapid reduction in newcomers has impacted the labor force with documented shortages in agriculture, fishing, construction, and trucking while showing no increased benefit to native born workers. With birth rates at record lows and the end of the baby boom now increasing the number of retirees, and the reduced migration flow that has reduced foreign labor by 1 million workers, there is a notable slowdown in economic growth.
“Newspapers carry daily stories of children, grandparents, religious workers and nursing mothers being swept up and shipped to undisclosed locations far from home without notifications or the freedom to call family or legal aid.”
Legal challenges have slowed or reversed some actions, such as ending Haitian TPS, but ICE continues to interpret the right to hold those arrested for unlimited time in detention. Likewise, the claim of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that its new priority is to deport “criminal aliens” is met with scores of court rulings against the federal government and victories for a small number of cases, yet notably, not ending the police action against the general immigrant population. 73% of ICE detainees have no criminal record and most crimes of these purported “criminal aliens” are minor offenses such as traffic violations. Newspapers carry daily stories of children, grandparents, religious workers and nursing mothers being swept up and shipped to undisclosed locations far from home without notifications or the freedom to call family or legal aid. There is a 600% increase in ICE "at large" arrests in 9 months.
This growing incarceration industry has made significant political contributions, hired senior officials and seen investment from many in the current Administration.
400 days and hundreds of changes.
Written by Dr. Westy Egmont. Dr. Egmont is an Executive Committee Member of the Metropolis International Migration Network and is based in Boston, USA.
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