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Immigration and anti-immigrant vitriol have taken center stage in the 2024 election and dominated U.S. politics in recent years. But this rhetoric runs counter to what the data show Americans overwhelmingly want positive immigration reform, welcoming communities, and the protection of asylum. It also runs counter to human rights standards, which demand respect for human dignity regardless of national origin or immigration status.

The first Trump administration sought to weaponize the immigration system and target immigrants regardless of their legal status. Over 400 executive actions sought to dismantle an outmoded and underfunded immigration adjudications system, terminate legal status for Dreamers and others, spur chaos at the border, and ban travelers from Muslim majority countries.

This time around, the incoming Trump administration’s stated agenda revolves around threats of mass deportations. It also signals a return to “deportation-by-attrition” strategies which undermine the human rights of non-citizens and their families with a goal of effectively pushing them out or deterring them from seeking safety in the US. Based on his campaign— and the Project 2025 platform—we anticipate this term to see similar threats. Despite clear Supreme Court precedent affirming these rights, the incoming administration has indicated it may attempt to target birthright citizenship, limit access to services for U.S. citizen children in immigrant families and erode the current guarantee to public education for all children, regardless of immigration status.

Some threats could quickly be realized by orders rescinding Biden enforcement priority guidance or terminating programs like “Uniting for Ukraine,” which provides a pathway for Ukrainian citizens to enter and stay temporarily in the United States. Halting refugee admissions or failing to renew temporary protected status for any of the sixteen countries currently designated could be achieved without congressional or regulatory action. But many proposed actions would require new regulations or legislation.

For example, expanding detention space and intensifying militarized immigration enforcement depends on congressional will to appropriate additional billions of dollars. Such changes would also hinge on the administration’s ability to convince state and local governments to allow law enforcement resources to be diverted to Trump’s deportation agenda through the 287(g) deputization program and other pressure. And, as we saw in the first Trump administration, the courts may play a role in stopping or pausing any efforts determined unlawful.

EXPECTED ATTACKS ON ASYLUM

Donald Trump again ran on an antiimmigrant agenda. The incoming administration likely will start where the last Trump Administration ended, reviving the “death to asylum” regulation. The sweeping regulatory change was enjoined by the court and never took effect under the Biden administration. The rule attempted to fundamentally redefine the standards for asylum, erect procedural barriers, and heighten evidentiary burdens to eliminate access to internationally guaranteed protection from persecution.

Despite the expected challenges, presidential discretion remains limited by the Constitution, by the laws passed by Congress, and by international law. The Advocates and other coalition partners will use the tools we have to enforce Refugee Convention and the other protections for refugees and asylum seekers.


RECLAIM THE NARRATIVE

The Trump administration likely will send Congress a “border security” bill rife with provisions effectively seeking to end access to asylum early in the term. Restrictions or bans on asylum harm people and communities and are unlawful, cruel and ineffective. They do not reduce the number of people seeking safety. They only create more harm and chaos.

It’s time to reclaim the immigration narrative and reject demands to harm migrants and waste billions in unwarranted enforcement spending. We need smart, practical solutions that uphold the United States’ obligations to protect people seeking safety.

 For decades, immigration policy has been hijacked by tough-on immigration/ seal-the-border narratives. Today U.S. immigration law is designed to minimize the ways people can obtain lawful status and maximize the ways they can lose their status. Even plainly worded statutory guarantees of the right to seek asylum long have been treated as an end-run around immigration laws, rather than as the federal and international law it is. Meanwhile “success” is measured only by the numbers of “aliens” excluded or expelled, rather than by the inclusion of newcomers in and stability of our communities.

We must judge the efficacy of immigration policy by a different measure. By how well our immigration system provides safe, orderly, accessible, and fair pathways for people to become part of our community. By whether the system respects human dignity and due process. And by whether the most fundamental human rights – to seek asylum from persecution, to be free from arbitrary detention, and to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment – are upheld.