By Ted Hesson and Alexandra Ulmer
WASHINGTON/PEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump, who was sworn in on Monday, said he would declare illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency, send troops there and step up deportations of criminals.
Trump, who outlined the crackdown in his inaugural address, said he would invoke a 1798 wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act to target foreign mob members in the United States, a legal authority last used to detain noncitizens of Japanese, Germans and Italians. Descent into concentration camps during World War II. Trump also said he would designate criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
Shortly after the inauguration, US border authorities said they were shutting down outgoing President Joe Biden's CBP One entry program, which allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the United States legally by making an appointment on an app. Existing appointments have been cancelled, leaving migrants distraught and unsure of what to do.
Trump, a Republican, regained control of the White House after promising to strengthen border security and deport record numbers of immigrants. While Trump criticized Biden for rising levels of illegal immigration during the Democrats' presidency, migrant arrests dropped significantly after Biden tightened his policies in June and as Mexico ramped up law enforcement.
Republicans say large-scale deportations are necessary after millions of immigrants crossed illegally during Biden's presidency. There were nearly 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally or temporarily at the beginning of 2022, according to U.S. government estimates, a number some analysts now estimate at between 13 million and 14 million.
“As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I will do,” Trump said in his speech.
Trump's critics and immigrant advocates say mass deportations could cripple businesses, divide families and cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.
Trump's decision to end the CBP One program removed the only path to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, the ACLU said in a lawsuit Monday. The American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal judge in Washington to allow consideration of the termination in an existing lawsuit over Biden-era asylum restrictions that could affect Trump's legal authority, the opening salvo by the civil rights group to fight Trump's agenda in court.
California and other Democratic-led states that have policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement could also run afoul of Trump.
A December Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Americans had become less welcoming to immigrants without legal status since Trump's first presidency, but were still wary of harsh measures such as the use of concentration camps.
Biden's entry program is closed
In several Mexican border cities, migrants saw their appointments canceled on Biden's CBP One app right after Trump took office. About 280,000 people were logging into the app daily to secure an appointment as of January 7.
In Matamoros, Mexico, a group of migrants from the central Mexican state of Zacatecas arrived at a legal border crossing in the middle of the day, but border authorities turned them back and told a Reuters witness that all appointments had become invalid.
Denia Méndez, a Honduran sitting in the courtyard of a migrant shelter in Piedras Negras — a Mexican city across from Eagle Pass, Texas — opened her email inbox 30 minutes after Trump took office. She stared at the email for several minutes, reading it over and over, before tears came to her eyes.
“They canceled my appointment,” she said. Several other immigrants, who only minutes before had been laughing as they served potato chips to the bathroom, gathered around her phone, their faces suddenly serious.
Mendez's 15-year-old daughter, Sophia, kept trying to log into the CBP One app.
“They won't let you on the app, honey,” her mother told her calmly.
Birthright citizenship was targeted
Trump intends to challenge the US citizenship of children born to parents in the United States illegally, a new Trump official said earlier today. So-called “birthright citizenship” stems from an amendment to the US Constitution, and any move to restrict it would almost certainly lead to legal challenges.
Trump also intends to suspend the U.S. refugee resettlement program for at least four months and will order a review of security procedures to see if travelers from certain countries should be subject to a travel ban, the official said.
Trump said in his speech that he would reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” program during his first term, which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico to learn the outcome of US cases. Biden ended the program in 2021, saying migrants were stuck in miserable conditions.
“All illegal entry will be stopped immediately, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens to the places they came from,” Trump said.
The Mexican presidency, Foreign Ministry and Economy Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump's plans. At a regular news conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for calm and insisted that her government must see the details of Trump's actions before responding.
