20 Years Ago, Congress Passed An Immigration Bill Raising H-1B Visas

In 2004, Congress raised the H-1B annual limit by exempting 20,000 students a year who earned a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. university. The immigration bill was the last time lawmakers increased access to high-skilled foreign nationals. Without the law, up to 400,000 highly skilled individuals with a master’s degree or higher would never have been allowed to work in the United States. The 1990 Immigration Act Set A Low Annual Limit On H-1B Visas When Congress passed The Immigration Act of 1990, it established two numerical restrictions that proved frustrating to employers and high-skilled foreign nationals: a 65,000 annual limit on new H-1B petitions and a 140,000 yearly ceiling on employment-based green cards. Every year for the past two decades, employers have exhausted the supply of H-1B visas, and over one million Indians now wait in the first, second and third employment-based green card categories, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. Before 1990, going back decades, employers could use H-1 visas, including for high-skilled professionals, without a numerical limit. Warren Leiden, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association when the 1990 Act became law, said the H-1B provisions in 1990 were “protectionist.” In addition to imposing new requirements on employers, the law, as noted, set a low annual limit that failed to anticipate the impact of technology. PROMOTED The internet, and later smartphones, AI and other developments, boosted the demand for highly skilled labor far beyond 65,000 new foreign nationals a year. More than 70% of the full-time graduate students in electrical engineering and computer and information sciences at U.S. universities are international students. Leiden recalls that the 65,000 number was not based on a thoughtful analysis of future economic needs but instead was “pulled out of the air.” The Immigration Bills In 1998 And 2000 Temporarily Increased H-1B Visas In 1998, Congress passed the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act, which increased the H-1B annual limit to 115,000 in FY 1999 and 2000 and 107,500 in FY 2001. Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI), who I worked for at the time, authored the legislation. He believed greater access to high-skilled foreign nationals would help drive innovation and keep the United States competitive in a technology-based economy. His House counterpart, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), wanted to impose new restrictions on high-skilled immigration. The two men reached a compromise. The Clinton administration negotiated further changes with Senator Abraham until a final product was reached and passed by Congress. MORE FOR YOU Who Went Home On ‘Dancing With The Stars?’ Semi-Finals Recap And Scores New Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge Warning—Do Not Shop On These Websites Trump’s Cabinet And Key Jobs: Linda McMahon Expected For Secretary Of Education, Dr. Oz Picked For Top Medicare Role The need for the 1998 legislation became apparent when companies reached the 65,000 annual limit for the first time in FY 1997. However, the increase Congress passed in 1998 proved inadequate: Companies exhausted the H-1B supply of 115,000 in FY 1999 and FY 2000. CEO: C-suite news, analysis, and advice for top decision makers right to your inbox. Email address Sign Up By signing up, you agree to receive this newsletter, other updates about Forbes and its affiliates’ offerings, our Terms of Service (including resolving disputes on an individual basis via arbitration), and you acknowledge our Privacy Statement. Forbes is protected by reCAPTCHA, and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. In 2000, Congress passed the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act, which increased the H-1B annual limit to 195,000 for FY 2001, FY 2002 and FY 2003. Senator Abraham, Rep. Smith and the Clinton administration once more came to a compromise on Abraham’s initial legislation. symbol 00:00 03:36 Read More In FY 2001, 163,600 of the 195,000 H-1B petitions were utilized. However, due to an economic downturn, employers used only 79,100 H-1B petitions in FY 2002 and 78,000 in FY 2003, despite the 195,000 annual limit in those years. Companies argued it showed they hired H-1B visa holders based on the demand for labor, not because, as some critics charged, individuals with H-1B status worked for less money. The H-1B annual limit returned to 65,000 in FY 2004. GEORGE W. BUSH ANNOUNCES FINAL CABINET APPOINTEES Senator Spencer Abraham, George W. Bush's appointee for Secretary of Energy, addresses the press ... [+]Sygma via Getty Images The 2004 Immigration Legislation That Increased H-1B Visas After employers exceeded the H-1B annual limit in FY 2004, companies lobbied for an H-1B increase. After an economic downturn and the terrorist attacks of September 2001, the mood on immigration turned less favorable in the United States. Still, the need for tech talent remained. “We would have loved for the H-1B cap to return to 195,000 a year,” said Lynn Shotwell, who served as executive director of the American Council on International Personnel. Senator Abraham, who chaired the Senate immigration subcommittee, lost his race for reelection in November 2000, so discussions began with Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House immigration subcommittee, and his staff about increasing the H-1B cap. Shotwell recalls that Smith’s chief of staff expressed interest in helping to find a legislative solution. “We hoped emphasizing the need for highly qualified workers and the 20,000 exemption for graduate students would be a stepping stone for green card reform,” said Sandy Boyd, who chaired the Compete America coalition and was vice president of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett had argued for stapling a green card to the diplomas of international students in science and engineering fields. Tech companies launched a public education campaign with a “passport to prosperity” featuring outstanding immigrants. Companies explained that when recruiting for permanent positions on U.S. campuses, most of the people they encountered in advanced degree programs were international students. Technology companies had started expanding again after the dot-com bust, and members of Congress worried about American competitiveness. Those in the business community who participated in the effort recall a pivotal moment came at a Semiconductor Industry Association breakfast meeting with several Republican members of Congress, primarily Judiciary Committee members with jurisdiction over immigration. After company executives provided data on engineering graduate-level graduation rates on campuses in those members’ districts and told stories about the need for talent, the members of Congress expressed shock and were receptive to changing the law. Participants recall that Rep. Smith did not appear to expect significant support from other Republicans to raise the H-1B cap. However, the opposite was the case, as one Republican member present even suggested giving green cards to every graduating engineer. The meeting indicated that Rep. Smith acted as a brake against more favorable measures that could have passed on high-skilled immigration. That became clear as the legislation developed. Rep. Smith was interested in reestablishing the enforcement provisions from the 1998 and 2000 bills. In 1998 and 2000, when Sen. Abraham negotiated a new fee for scholarships and job training with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and additional enforcement measures with Rep. Smith and the Clinton administration, he insisted these provisions be temporary since the increase in H-1B visas was temporary. That turned out to be crucial because it provided leverage for an increase in H-1B visas. It meant that when the annual H-1B cap returned to 65,000 in FY 2004, the scholarship and training fee on H-1B petitions and the new attestations on recruitment and nondisplacement disappeared. That set up a legislative compromise. The most significant measures in the bill that emerged and became law included: - An exemption of 20,000 from the H-1B annual limit for foreign nationals who “earned a master’s or higher degree” from a U.S. university. - Making permanent recruitment and nondisplacement attestations from the 1998 and 2000 laws. - Creating permanent authority for the Secretary of Labor to investigate abuses of H-1B visas without a complaint filed after meeting certain requirements. - Making permanent provisions from the 1998 and 2000 laws to require employers to pay a fee towards scholarships and job training. The law raised most employers’ fees from $1,000 to $1,500. - Creating a $500 fee on H-1B and L-1 visas for “fraud prevention and detection.” - Changing the L-1 visa category to ensure that intracompany transferees worked one year abroad (rather than six months) before working in the United States. The bill restricted using L-1 visas to “provide labor for hire.” The 2000 law had exempted from the 65,000 annual limit H-1B petitions for U.S. universities and nonprofit and government research institutions. Congress passed the “L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act” on November 20, 2004. President George W. Bush signed it into law as part of omnibus legislation on December 8, 2004. Randel Johnson, who worked on immigration policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during this period, said it’s unfortunate the business community could not expect to see in today’s environment the type of immigration liberalization embodied in the 1998 and 2000 laws that increased H-1B visas. He considers the relative narrowness of the H-1B increase in 2004 showed how difficult increasing immigration had become even four years after the 2000 legislation. “Back then, we had a bipartisan consensus that business immigration was good for the country, and we worked with Rep. Lamar Smith and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA),” said Lynn Shotwell. Rep. Lofgren played a critical role in ensuring Democratic support and helping to smooth the way for including the bill in the omnibus package, according to Sandy Boyd. House Committee Considers Contempt Citation For Bolton And Miers Chairman of U.S. House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) (L) talks with Rep. Lamar Smith ... [+]Getty Images The Immigration Legacy Of The H-1B Increase In The 2004 Bill The legacy of the 2004 bill remains mixed. By becoming law, the bill has allowed up to 400,000 graduates of U.S. universities to gain H-1B status and remain to work in the United States. Many of these individuals have likely become U.S. citizens and contributed to the American economy as professionals, researchers and entrepreneurs. Over the past two decades, employers have paid more than $6 billion in H-1B fees that have funded approximately 100,000 scholarships for U.S. students in science and technology fields and job training for U.S. workers, according to an NFAP analysis. Despite the 20,000 exemption for advanced degree holders, the H-1B annual limit has remained inadequate. The 85,000 annual limit (65,000 plus the 20,000 exemption) equals only 0.05% of the U.S. labor force. According to USCIS, the agency received H-1B registrations for 442,000 unique beneficiaries for FY 2025, five times more than the 85,000 ceiling. That means USCIS, in effect, was forced to block 300,000 to 350,000 high-skilled foreign nationals from working in the United States in 2024 due to the annual limit under U.S. law. Research by economist Britta Glennon concluded restrictions on H-1B visas result in more jobs leaving the United States. Economist Giovanni Peri and colleagues found that the H-1B annual limit has prevented employers from creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for U.S. workers, including by discouraging investment. Since 2004, immigration reform bills have included liberalizing reforms for business immigration on H-1B visas and employment-based green cards. Those bills failed to become law. In some cases, it was due to disagreement over addressing the fate of individuals living in the country in unlawful status in comprehensive legislation. During the Trump administration, new restrictions resulted in skyrocketing H-1B denial rates and many costly Requests for Evidence for companies until a legal settlement compelled Trump officials to end actions that judges found unlawful. A second Trump administration could enact those or other policies to restrict employer access to high-skilled foreign nationals. While some have blamed “Congress” for the lack of additional immigration legislation, it is individual members who often prevent a bill from becoming law. In 2022, in what became the CHIPS and Science Act, the Democratic majority in the House passed a startup visa and an exemption from annual green card limits for foreign nationals with a Ph.D. in science and technology fields and those with a master’s degree “in a critical industry.” However, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), then the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, blocked the provisions from becoming law in a conference committee. In January 2025, Grassley is expected to resume his position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

USCIS Updates Guidance on Determining Custody for Children Acquiring U.S. Citizenship

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration and Services is issuing guidance regarding the legal and physical custody requirements for purposes of acquisition of U.S. citizenship under section 320 and naturalization under section 322 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). We are also expanding guidance on derivation of citizenship before the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, under former INA section 321. The update clarifies and expands the current guidance on determining legal and physical custody of children of U.S. citizens for acquisition of citizenship purposes. Specifically, the updated guidance: Expands guidance on when USCIS considers a child to be in the legal custody of the U.S. citizen parent, clarifies the effect of a nunc pro tunc (retroactive) correction of a custody order, and clarifies when USCIS may recognize private custody agreements; Clarifies that USCIS considers a U.S. citizen parent who has actual uncontested custody of a child to have legal custody for purposes of acquisition of citizenship when there is no judicial determination on legal custody and the relevant jurisdiction’s law does not determine which parent has legal custody of the child; Provides that a U.S. citizen parent has physical custody of a child when the child resides or physically lives with the parent; Expands guidance on adjudicating derivation of U.S. citizenship claims before the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, by providing detailed clarification on each of the requirements of former INA section 321, including the legal custody requirements; and Clarifies that USCIS cannot issue a Certificate of Citizenship to any applicant who does not take the Oath of Allegiance and is not eligible for a waiver of the oath. This guidance is effective immediately and applies to applications pending on or after Nov. 19, 2024. For more information, see Volume 12, Part H of the USCIS Policy Manual. This update will help ensure consistent determinations of legal and physical custody for adjudication of citizenship claims and provide more detailed guidance on how to determine legal and physical custody for eligibility for a certificate of citizenship in these cases. USCIS is also implementing these changes consistent with Executive Order 14012, Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans, and the goals of removing barriers to citizenship.

What will Trump’s immigration policy really look like?

FIRST THINGS FIRST — President-elect Donald Trump is planning to make good on his campaign trail promise that immigration would be a day one priority in his second administration. Today, he appeared to confirm on social media that he would declare a national emergency to embark on a mass deportation campaign. But reshaping immigration policy — and sending hundreds of thousands of people out of the country at minimum — won’t be as simple as putting a pen to paper and ordering it to be done. Pro-immigration groups around the country are ready to stand up legal defenses. And Trump will have to contend with a judiciary that has been skeptical of his immigration actions in the past — most notably when he attempted to push through a travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries (though the Supreme Court, in particular, looks considerably different than it did in 2017). It makes for a looming showdown as soon as Trump takes office. Republicans (and many Democrats as well) largely agree that immigration reform is necessary. But the question is how far to go. Some in Trump’s inner circle are pushing for large scale bans or scaling down legal immigration, in addition to mass deportations. Yet there are also Trump loyalists who believe there should be limits to how restrictive Trump’s policies will be, given that America is in desperate need of highly skilled workers from other places around the world. Nightly turned to POLITICO reporter Betsy Woodruff Swan, who recently has explored these topics in detail, to give us a better sense of what’s to come. This interview has been edited. What’s the biggest hurdle Trump is facing right now to his plans to overhaul immigration in the U.S.? Trump will quickly bump into a few logistical issues: the government’s capacity to detain immigrants and foreign countries’ resistance to repatriating people (especially those convicted of violent crimes). What would the kind of wholesale changes that Trump wants to make actually look like on the ground? To state the obvious, I’d expect significantly more arrests by ICE, probably more worksite enforcement (including targeting employers who hire undocumented workers), expanded detention capacity, and heightened pressure on local law enforcement agencies to cooperate on immigration enforcement. The immigration courts, which are part of the executive branch and housed in the Justice Department, will also face significant scrutiny from Trump’s White House immigration-focused personnel. Are there different factions within the incoming Trump administration who have different ideas about immigration priorities? The biggest split will likely involve visas for high tech workers. People with backgrounds on Wall Street and Silicon Valley have long argued that America’s high-tech workforce isn’t big enough to support demand, and that we need foreign workers to fill jobs. But the more restrictionist-minded advisers say that’s factually incorrect and that giving visas to tech workers drives down the wages. That fight is inevitable and it will pit two very powerful factions against each other — hardline anti-immigration advocates versus burgeoning tech interests among Trump loyalists. How will Trump’s plans affect U.S. relations in Latin America? The US will need to pressure Mexico to restart the “Remain in Mexico” policy that kept people seeking asylum in the U.S. from immediately being granted entry. We don’t know what Mexico will seek in return. The U.S. may also need to negotiate with Latin American countries to repatriate deportees. That can cause friction. Do his campaign promises hold much real chance of success? From your reporting, what looks like a flight of fancy right now, and what looks like it really will happen on Day 1? There are a series of executive actions Trump can take on Day One that will have real impact, including throwing out a memo [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas issued that made ICE agents be more deliberative about who to deport. He can also quickly end temporary protection from deportation available to people from multiple countries –– including Haiti and Venezuela — who currently have Temporary Protected Status as immigrants in the U.S. due to armed conflicts in their home countries. And he can immediately stop using the CBP One app, which was designed to make it quicker and easier for people to seek asylum (though it’s drawn significant criticism across the board). His biggest constraints will be funding-related. For that he’ll need Congress. But congressional Republicans are likely to be very accommodating. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh. A message from AARP: America’s 48 million family caregivers spend over $7,000 a year to care for older parents, spouses and other loved ones. They need a tax credit. With a new Congress, it’s time to act on the Credit for Caring tax credit. What'd I Miss? — Trump confirms he will deploy the military for mass deportation plan: Donald Trump confirmed today that he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for the mass deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. Trump posted “TRUE!!!” in response to conservative activist Tom Fitton, who wrote in his own Truth Social post about the incoming administration’s preparation to use the military for deportation efforts. As the president-elect plans to begin the process of deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally in his first 100 days, Trump’s team is working to craft executive orders that can withstand legal challenges from immigration advocates to avoid a defeat like the one his 2017 Muslim ban faced. — Eastern Seaboard scrambles to deal with drought and fire: Governors in New York and New Jersey have begun warning their residents to save water as an unusual drought grips the region. Even with some rain in the forecast this week, it likely won’t be enough to bring relief. A bleak picture is only worsening. Both states’ governors have alluded to long-term forecasts that suggest the winter ahead may be drier than normal too. It is nothing like California, where wildfires routinely destroy hundreds of thousands of acres a year. But raging fires — which prompted local evacuations this weekend and smoke wafting into New York City — have given residents and political leaders alike another taste of West Coast life in a warming climate. Last year, the region’s air was dangerously polluted by smoke from fires in Canada. — Martin O’Malley announces bid as DNC chair race kicks off: The race is on for the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is the first official entrant. O’Malley kicked off his bid today with a post on social media that said: “We must connect our Party with the most important place in America — the kitchen table of every family’s home. Jobs, Opportunity, and Economic Security for all. Getting things done. Hope. A 50 state strategy. Now.” O’Malley is resigning as head of the Social Security Administration, effective Nov. 29, to run for the role, he confirmed to POLITICO. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

The industries that could be hardest hit by Trump's immigration crackdown

President-elect Trump's vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants could eliminate workers from U.S. industries already projected to face shortages and cut up to 6.8% of the national gross domestic profit. The big picture: While undocumented laborers make up a relatively small percentage of the total U.S. workforce, they have outsized roles in fields like construction, agriculture and hospitality. Zoom in: Construction and agriculture workforces had the highest shares of undocumented workers as of 2022, per the American Immigration Council. Among the undocumented workforce: 39% of plasterers and stucco masons; 36% of drywall installers, ceiling tile installers, and tapers; 36% of roofers; and 31% of painters and paperhangers. 28% of graders and sorters for agricultural products were undocumented, as well as 25% of miscellaneous agricultural workers. Most U.S. voters (75%) said undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that American citizens don't want, according to an October Pew Research report. Industries like hospitality, service, health care, construction and agriculture would face labor shortages without immigrant labor, according to the Center for Migration Studies. Immigration status of U.S. agricultural workers Two-year surveys of at least 1,500 farm workers conducted 1989-90 to 2021-22 A line chart that illustrates the immigration status of U.S. agricultural workers. Workers were surveyed in two-year batches from 1989-90 to 2021-22. The share of unauthorized workers peaked at 55% in 1999-2000, while citizen workers reached a high of 45% in 1989-1990. In 2021-2022, 32% of those surveyed were citizens, 42% were unauthorized, 18% had other work authorization and 8% were legalization applicants. CitizenUnauthorizedOther work authorizationLegalization applicant 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 1991-92 1997-98 2003-04 2009-10 2015-16 2021-22 Data: National Agricultural Workers Survey; Chart: Axios Visuals Zoom out: A one-time operation to deport undocumented immigrants would cost at least $315 billion, according to an October report from the American Immigration Council. Mass deportations could lead to a loss of about 4.2% to 6.8% of annual GDP, per the report, amounting to between $1.1 trillion and $1.7 trillion. For comparison, the national GDP declined 4.3% during the 2007-09 Great Recession. Mass deportations would also bring a heavy human toll. About 4 million mixed status families could be separated, affecting 8.5 million U.S. citizens with undocumented family members. It could slash the incomes of their households by an average of nearly 63%, or about $51K per year, the report found. Reality check: From 2003 to 2022, unauthorized immigrants made up a relatively narrow range of all U.S. workers — between 4.4% and 5.4%, according to a July Pew Research report. This number is higher than the 3.3% of unauthorized immigrants in the total U.S. population because most undocumented people in the U.S. are workforce-aged, per Pew. Context: Trump's deportation plans would use obscure laws, military funds and law enforcement officers from all levels of government to deport millions of people. Fast-track deportations would be expanded to apply to anyone who illegally crossed the border and couldn't prove they'd been living in the U.S. for more than two years. Currently, they're just for recent crossers encountered near the border. Trump's proposals would also curb legal immigration and limit asylum, the New York Times reported. He repeatedly tried to restrict access to asylum during his first term. The latest: Trump on Monday said that he will declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations. This month, he tapped Tom Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as "border czar" for his next term. Homan, who had a role in the controversial family separation policy during Trump's first administration, has been a strong supporter of Trump's mass deportation plans. He also led the deportation branch within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under former President Obama. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump plans the ‘largest deportation’ ever. Here’s how it might start.

Donald Trump vowed during his campaign to enact “the largest deportation operation in American history,” possibly involving the military. Can he? Legal and logistical barriers may stymie his plans. The president-elect also pledged more deportations during his first term than he delivered. And yet, a second Trump administration is armed with lessons learned from his prior administration and hard-line loyalists who shaped his border policies before. Among those are Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s newly announced “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, an immigration adviser who will take on a deputy chief of staff role. Trump advisers are discussing declaring a national emergency to help facilitate immigration detention and deportation, and potentially open up the use of military bases to hold immigrants, The Wall Street Journal reports. On Monday, Mr. Trump called similar reports “TRUE!!!” on his Truth Social account. Why We Wrote This President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for mass deportations. As he moves to make good on a campaign pledge in the name of security, the future of unauthorized immigrants is unclear. For their part, many immigrants and their advocates are bracing for major change. Their fears include more separations of mixed-status families and potential hits to industries like agriculture, which economists say could raise prices across the United States. The scale of deportations may depend on what Mr. Trump wants to accomplish, says David Thronson, immigration law professor at Michigan State University. “If he wants headlines,” says Professor Thronson, he could order mass roundups at the limits of the law – and let courts decide “what violates due process or not.” Recommended Creativity They took up arms to fight Russia. They’ve taken up pens to express themselves. What are Trump’s deportation priorities? Congress hasn’t made major changes to the country’s immigration laws since the 1990s. Yet the application of those laws depends on who’s in office, as presidents set priorities. That includes which immigrants to focus on for “removal” – a legal term for deportation. During the Biden administration’s first year, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on the removal of noncitizens who threaten national security, public safety, and border security. He counseled against spending resources on those posing no threat. The incoming administration similarly says it will first target criminals who pose security risks. But Mr. Trump will likely broaden that scope to other unauthorized immigrants. Entering the country illegally, for example, is a misdemeanor on the first offense. Residing in the U.S. without proper authorization, such as by overstaying a visa, is a civil violation. Mr. Homan, tapped to oversee the mass deportation effort, has confirmed to press that workplace roundups would resume. He also told conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk that the operation should be transparent, with a weekly briefing to the public. Former acting director of ICE under the first Trump term, who pitched the “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in family separation, Mr. Homan says transportation and shelter help from the Department of Defense may be necessary. He’s also mentioned outreach from “thousands” of military and law enforcement retirees willing to assist. Recommended Resilience Ukraine’s Pokrovsk was about to fall to Russia 2 months ago. It’s hanging on. “If you’re in the country illegally, you shouldn’t be comfortable,” he told The New York Times. “You should be concerned because you broke our laws.” About these ads That concern is felt by a small-business owner in Colorado. She overstayed her tourist visa and now lives here without authorization. “It’s scary for us,” says the woman, who preferred not to have her name published for privacy. There are “not many options for us to come here in the ‘right’ way.” Mr. Trump’s win was “something we didn’t expect to happen,” she says. Her family plans to remain in blue-state Colorado and avoid visiting relatives in Florida. She considers the Republican-led state more supportive of Mr. Trump’s agenda. Veronica G. Cardenas/AP/File Guatemalan migrants are searched before boarding a deportation flight in Harlingen, Texas, May 5, 2023. Some polls suggest the majority of Americans support mass deportations. Yet other survey questions hint at more nuanced views held by the U.S. public – like strong desires for both border security and increased pathways to citizenship. How many unauthorized immigrants are currently in the country, and subject to deportation, is unclear. As of January 2022, the government estimates, there were 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. (That’s roughly a quarter of the foreign-born population.) Recommended Resilience Women in construction find solidarity as ‘sisters in the brotherhood’ However, many immigrants have since entered illegally, and it’s unknown how many have stayed. At the southern border, from the beginning of the Biden presidency through June, the administration has released into the country some 4.6 million individuals who lacked prior permission to enter, estimates the Migration Policy Institute. By contrast, under 1 million were released under Mr. Trump’s first term. The Department of Homeland Security includes people with temporary protections from deportation in its “unauthorized” count. That’s another reason it’s hard to pinpoint exact numbers eligible for removal. Mr. Trump has spoken of ending those temporary protections, however. About these ads No matter how dramatically Mr. Trump scales up removals, though, infrastructure will need to scale up, too. What are the logistical and legal hurdles? Removals involve ICE officers, detention space, court bandwidth, and charter flights. One pro-immigrant group has put the price tag of mass deportations at $315 billion, if not more. Yet the businessman returning to the Oval Office dismisses the cost. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag,” Mr. Trump told NBC News. To carry out his plan, Mr. Trump speaks of tapping into military might, including the National Guard. But there are legal limits around how presidents can use those troops to enforce laws. Recommended What Trump’s historic victory says about America Immigration lawyers point to the Constitution’s due process protections that extend to immigrants on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has said he’ll invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. During times of war or invasion, the law makes subjects of enemy nations “liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies.” The president-elect and his allies have repeatedly said that illegal immigration is an “invasion.” How immigration judges decide cases – including defenses to deportation, like asylum – may also change based on who’s installed as attorney general. That’s because the country’s immigration courts and judges operate within the Department of Justice. (One of Mr. Trump’s former attorneys general, Jeff Sessions, for instance, decided victims of domestic or gang violence generally weren’t eligible for asylum. The Biden administration reversed this.) Last week, Mr. Trump announced his nomination of Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a lawmaker staunchly opposed to illegal immigration, as attorney general. About these ads Moreover, Mr. Trump may benefit from a legal victory handed to Mr. Biden last year. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to challenge the government’s immigration enforcement priorities. In some ways, the incoming president is “in a stronger legal position” than before, and can “push the envelope on other things,” says Professor Thronson. The Republican administration can expect challenges from elected officials, however. Some Democratic governors, like those in Illinois and Massachusetts, have already pledged to limit cooperation, based on protecting their state residents and democratic norms. Selene Rodriguez, a campaign director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argues that places with “sanctuary” polices are only “aiding and abetting crime committed by illegal aliens.” She says liberal leaders “need to get out of the way” and let the government do its job. Another roadblock for Mr. Trump will be diplomatic. Despite the president-elect’s frequent disparagement of Venezuelan immigrants, including suspected gang members, Venezuela doesn’t currently accept deportees from the U.S., reports Axios. Recommended Worries rise over a Trump ‘warrior board’ to remove officers ‘unfit for leadership’ How will this affect communities? In Oklahoma City, immigration lawyer Kelli Stump is fielding fearful calls from people worried they’ll get deported. Potential mass deportation is a “wait-and-see situation,” which makes it hard to counsel clients, says the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Still, Ms. Stump hopes she’s right in thinking that mass removals “can’t happen overnight.” About these ads Beyond human impacts, however, there may be economic ones. Given the country’s reliance on unauthorized immigrants for labor, some economists worry mass deportations could spike prices. “I think we can learn a lot from that first term,” when agricultural employers were largely spared, says Rick Naerebout, chief executive officer of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. That’s because the impact of mass deportation on rural economies, often reliant on agriculture, would be “devastating,” he says. In sectors like his, employers may compete for workers more than workers compete for employment. Idaho’s September unemployment rate was 3.6% – below the nation’s 4.1%. “Our jobs are not jobs that Americans have filled for decades now,” he says. Recommended The Monitor's View A graceful renewal of Notre-Dame Cathedral Not since the 1980s, under Republican President Ronald Reagan, have unauthorized workers benefited from mass amnesty. In as soon as two months, Americans may see what mass consequences are possible. Editor’s note: This article was updated Nov. 18, the same day as publication, to add Mr. Trump’s comments on mass deportation plans. Read these companion articles: Trump calls for mass deportation. How would that work? The Republican Party has sought to capitalize on voter concerns over record-high illegal immigration during the Biden years. Here we look at the feasibility of a pillar of Donald Trump’s plan for addressing that influx and disincentivizing such crossings. Deepen your worldview with Monitor Highlights. Your e-mail address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy. Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. Deportation 101: How removing people from the US really works Deportation sounds like a straightforward term, but it’s complicated in practice. Here’s context for understanding the rise in deportations under President Joe Biden and Republican proposals calling for more. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump’s immigration crackdown is expected to start on Day 1

In his first 100 days, President-elect Donald Trump plans to begin the process of deporting hundreds of thousands of people. He is expected to end parole for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. And he is likely to undo a policy that significantly constrained deportations for people who weren’t deemed threats to public safety or national security. Trump’s team is already thinking about how to craft executive actions aimed to withstand the legal challenges from immigrants’ rights groups — all in hopes of avoiding an early defeat like the one his 2017 travel ban targeting majority-Muslim nations suffered. This time, Trump may have friendlier arbiters. These fights will be refereed by a federal judiciary that he transformed during his first term, including by appointing more than 200 federal judges himself. And at the very top — the ultimate decider of these questions — is the Supreme Court, to which he appointed three conservative justices. But legal fights aren’t the only long-term challenge Trump’s ambitious immigration agenda will face. The logistical challenges of mass deportation are a little harder to predict. The speed at which Trump could remake deportation policy depends on surmounting tactical challenges like expanding detention capacity and cutting through a massive immigration court backlog. Trump has already tapped South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has little experience with the Department of Homeland Security, to lead the sprawling agency. From inside the White House, Stephen Miller, widely seen as the architect of Trump’s first-term restrictionist agenda, has an expansive role over domestic policy. And Thomas Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, is returning to be the administration’s border czar. Through it all, Trump’s immigration team will face intense and sustained scrutiny from the president himself. Here are some of the immigration initiatives Trump’s team is expected to roll out quickly, and the hurdles they could face: Ramping up deportations Trump campaigned on mass deportation — something that could affect large swaths of the 11 million people DHS estimates are in the U.S. without legal authorization. But deporting millions of people could run into some logistical problems. According to DHS, the largest number of yearly removals came in FY 2013 during the Obama administration, when more than 430,000 people were removed from the U.S. Trump’s advisers have indicated they would prioritize people with criminal convictions and final removal orders for deportation. In 2022, according to the pro-immigration American Immigration Council, about 1.19 million people had those orders — meaning their cases had worked their way through immigration court and judges decided they must leave. Just removing the people in that category could take years. Finding, detaining and removing those people would be resource-intensive, said John Sandweg, acting director of ICE from 2013 to 2014. Detention capacity alone would be a costly and immediate challenge. Lawmakers need to appropriate the funding, and even if they do, the administration would need to hire, vet and train more officers — no easy feat. ICE currently employs 7,000 officers who conduct 250,000 deportations a year, according to the agency. If Trump’s administration wanted to quadruple this number, as Trump has promised, training academies couldn’t handle a deluge of new hires. “It is just a resource game, but it’s a hard game to play,” Sandweg said. Regardless of the hurdles and impediments, Trump has been unequivocal. “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice,” he told NBC News on Thursday. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.” The names of several Cabinet positions, including Chief of Staff, Ambassador to the United Nations and Education Secretary, along with the headshots of people who have been appointed, nominated or confirmed to those positions in the second Trump administration. Trump Transition of Power 2025 Tracking Trump’s Cabinet picks By POLITICO Staff | November 12, 2024 10:49 AM Ending parole for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela Another Biden administration program that’s likely to end fast: a special visa-free humanitarian parole process for some residents of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Biden administration, to discourage migrants from trying to cross the border illegally, offered a way for some people from these countries to enter the country legally if they were vetted and had an American-based sponsor. As of August, nearly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans had traveled to the U.S. via the program and were granted permission to live and work in the U.S. for two years. Trump, meanwhile, campaigned on expelling many of them. Over the summer, he spread baseless claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets. And he promised to revoke Haitians’ eligibility for Temporary Protected Status — another program that shields some people from countries with unsafe conditions from deportation and grants them work permits. Many Haitians can work in the U.S. legally because of TPS, a tool secretaries of Homeland Security have used since 1990. “All that stuff is going to end very fast, almost immediately,” said Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a restrictionist group. Stein’s group is closely allied with Trump’s team and became a feeder for personnel during the first Trump administration. “They basically hired half our staff,” he said. Mark Krikorian, of the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, agreed that the temporary provision of TPS work documents to people from certain countries deemed dangerous would likely be constricted dramatically. MOST READ election-2024-trump-39349.jpg Republicans suddenly think the economy’s great and the election wasn’t rigged Trump’s immigration crackdown is expected to start on Day 1 Matt Gaetz feels the heat No Sex, No Dating, No Babies, No Marriage: How the 4B Movement Could Change America ‘Papa’ Gaetz on his son’s AG pick: ‘I have someone in Washington on speed dial’ Currently, DHS makes this program available to people from 16 countries, including El Salvador, Ukraine, Syria, Somalia and Haiti. During Trump’s first term, his administration tried to end TPS status for more than 300,000 people. But immigrants sued, arguing the move was made out of racial animus. They secured a nationwide injunction that lasted through the Trump administration. Rolling back the Mayorkas memo Early in the Biden administration, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo laying out priorities for which immigrants to deport. It emphasized people who threaten national security and public safety, and it directed ICE officers to learn “the totality of the facts and circumstances” about criminal convictions before deciding whether to deport someone — rather than solely using a conviction as a basis for deportation. Immigration restrictionists expect that guidance will be one of the first things to go. “That stuff’s going to end obviously, right away,” said Krikorian, whose work was frequently cited by the first Trump administration. Another person close to Trump’s transition, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, said Mayorkas’ memo could be revoked as soon as Day One, possibly as part of a broader package of executive actions intended to reduce “bureaucratic” hurdles that impede deportations. Deactivating the CBP One app The Biden administration rolled out a mobile phone application called CBP One that migrants could use to set up appointments to seek asylum. While Democrats hoped it would create more order around the border, Republicans said the initiative was a way to rush in people who shouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States. Amnesty International, meanwhile, said it violates international law by restraining where and how people could seek asylum. Either way, under Trump, according to the person close to the transition, it’s likely toast. President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak. In the first 100 days, Trump’s immigration team will likely assess which countries they deem most problematic and decide whether to threaten sanctions. | Alex Brandon/AP Ramping up immigration diplomacy Another tool the Trump administration may use quickly is threats to countries that resist repatriating unwanted migrants. One challenge for rapid deportations is that the home countries of many migrants — particularly those convicted of violent crimes — don’t always want to take them back. So those people sometimes stay in jails or immigration detention centers in the U.S. indefinitely. To pressure those countries, the U.S. government can threaten to restrict visas for certain categories of applicants. The Trump and Obama administrations both deployed this option because of this recalcitrance. But the Biden administration has not. In the first 100 days, Trump’s immigration team will likely assess which countries they deem most problematic and decide whether to threaten sanctions. “I think you’re going to see a significant increase and you’re going to see it early,” Krikorian said. “I’m pretty certain it would be in the first hundred days — there’s no reason you’d wait three months to do something.” The moves would require cooperation from the State Department, which issues visas. So Trump’s immigration-focused advisers will likely ensure that candidates for top roles at State are simpatico with the administration’s immigration policy — and Sen. Marco Rubio is widely expected to be Trump’s pick for secretary of State. “That’s going to be a condition for their appointment,” said Jessica Vaughan, also of the Center for Immigration Studies. “They’re not going to appoint someone and want to be surprised later on — ‘I don’t know, we’re not going to play our role.’ It’s in the job description.” Trump has also said he would restore his Remain in Mexico policy — officially called Migrant Protection Protocols — that required some asylum-seekers to stay south of the U.S.-Mexican border while they await immigration court hearings. But this will require the Trump administration to reach a deal with Mexico to restart the program. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Why So Many Latino Voters Abandoned Democrats, According to the Data

In the hours after the election was called for Donald Trump, some of the finger-pointing started quickly: Latinos were to blame. Democrats lost Latinos, and it cost them the election. According to Carlos Odio, co-founder of the firm Equis Research, which focuses on Latino polling, that’s not quite true. While Kamala Harris won Latinos by much smaller margins than Joe Biden did in 2020, she still won a majority of them — and her losses among the group didn’t cost her the election. “You could erase the Latino shift in those [Blue Wall] states, and Trump would still win,” Odio said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. That should still be cold comfort for Democrats. Trump made gains across every group in this critical demographic, cutting into Harris’ wins with Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Central Americans. He did well in Florida and Texas and New York and New Jersey. Even though many analysts expected a shift toward Trump this year, its extent was remarkable. “You have to say it certainly looks and sounds like a realignment,” Odio said, before giving Democrats some slim hope. “Realignments are neither inevitable nor irreversible, especially when you’re talking about an electorate like Latinos that have been very swingy and very dynamic.” This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Since the election, there’s been a lot of conversation that Latinos were to blame for electing Trump, or at least that Democrats lost Latinos as a group. What’s been your reaction to that? There’s a few levels here. One, it was entirely justified for people to jump on these eye-popping shifts we were seeing among Latino voters. It’s meaningful. It is, in some regard, historic, and has real consequences for elections going forward. At the same time, those shifts were not why Trump won, and it’s helpful to separate out our interest in understanding his Latino shifts from an analysis of the 2024 election. What happened this election is that Trump improved on his margins in nine out of 10 counties. There was a 6-point uniform swing across the country. He swept the Blue Wall states, in fact, the entire battleground. And so the story of how Trump won is not a demographic story. You cannot narrow in on any single demographic to explain it. That mingles with a personal element, which is that it was very disheartening when you get into finger-pointing. To some extent, I’m always down to have a debate about the impact of different factors in an election. That’s an empirical conversation, and that’s a data debate. This got personal in a way we have to move past to get to any kind of real understanding going forward. Look at the Blue Wall states, right? Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, where Latinos are 3 to 5 percent of the vote. You could erase the Latino shift in those states, and Trump would still win them. What does your data tell you about how this Latino vote broke down in different states and among different countries of origin? Our early indications, from precinct analysis and looking at other heavily Latino locales, is that the shift cut across geographies, urbanicity, country of origin. There were shifts of similar magnitude in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which is heavily Dominican, as there were in Allentown and Reading, Pennsylvania, which are heavily Puerto Rican, as there were among South American communities of Broward County in Florida, or Mexican American communities in Michigan, Wisconsin and the Tejano Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. As we contend with what happened, provincial theories that explain some unique element of some subset of Latinos in one place are totally insufficient to explain the broader movement. That’s really interesting, because it feels like there’s this entire conversation that gets repeated in recent elections, where we say Latinos are not a monolith, and that we can’t think of them as one cohesive group, but then we also keep wanting to know: Who won or lost Latinos? What you’re saying is whether it’s Dominicans, whether it’s Puerto Ricans, whether it’s third- or fourth-generation Mexican Americans, Trump is making inroads with all of these communities in one way or another. Yeah, in similar magnitude, and those shifts are greater than they are in the rest of the electorate. Latinos are not a monolith, but they moved as a group for two elections in a row, and it’s because of what they have in common across all the differences. It’s this Hispanic identification. It’s not a biological reality, it is to help people situate themselves in American politics. It is an understanding about how other people view you, and thus how candidates and parties view you and how they’re going to consider you when it comes time to make decisions. A lot of Democrats believed that this pro-Trump comedian’s comments calling Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” was going to swing voters toward their camp. But it seems like that’s not what happened. Is that right? And why not? Tony Hinchcliffe calls Puerto Rico 'island of garbage' at Trump rally SharePlay Video Our sense now is that Puerto Ricans in Lehigh and Berks counties, in Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, as well as in Osceola County in Florida, shifted significantly [toward Trump]. Clearly you look at that and say, whatever happened at the rally and the way it was amplified after, it could not make up for some of the Democratic disadvantages, or it came too late. MOST READ election-2024-trump-68950.jpg Trump to select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS Should the Democratic Party be listening to John Fetterman? How RFK Jr. could cause an earthquake for American public health The Resistance Is Not Coming to Save You. It’s Tuning Out. Trump picks North Dakota governor to lead Interior I think there’s reason to believe that actually it helped [Harris], that the numbers could have been worse had it not been for a late surge you saw among Puerto Rican Democrats in these areas. But the honest answer at this point is, we don’t really know. You can look at it and say, as you can say with a lot of other moments in the Trump era, that individual things that he or his allies say just don’t move the needle very much because they’re already baked into the calculus. People know he’s a racist. That’s not new information, and they’ve already made a calculation about him that either rejects that or works around it. What was the biggest motivator for this shift of Latinos moving toward Trump, according to your research? Why did Trump appeal to them so much, despite the fact that he has made a lot of claims that are arguably very harmful to the Latino community? Let me bring it back to the values we see among these voters. People voted for Biden in 2020 in the hopes that it would bring us back to normalcy. That there would be an end to the crisis era. And then, of course, we were hit by crisis upon crisis upon crisis. The one that really stuck with people was inflation. Of course, this has hit incumbents throughout the world, as many people have been talking about. The question is, did the Biden White House step up to the challenge? And what we were hearing from voters is they didn’t even seem to believe it was real, and so there wasn’t a sense that Biden understood what they were going through when the price of groceries was going up, when buying a home started seeming like an impossibility beyond any aspiration. A part of that was Biden himself. He didn’t seem like he had the vitality to steer us out of these crises. I remember a focus group, it was in Texas, where someone who was a Democrat was saying, “Look, I didn’t agree with much of what Trump did, but I knew he was doing things. He was out there every day.” He was active in a way that they didn’t see Biden. Biden couldn’t be a messenger in the way that they’ve come to expect it. Trump may have been reality TV, but when people get hooked on reality TV, it’s hard to switch to PBS NewsHour. They came to expect a certain level of showmanship and visibility that they weren’t getting from the White House in a period when they were struggling and they were worried. I think the migration crisis, which again they felt like the Biden White House was essentially ignoring, comes at a point where it just stokes the feelings they already had about inflation. It felt like we are struggling, and there are people arriving today who are getting benefits that we’re not. We heard it also in the context of Ukraine, that there’s money going to fight the war in Ukraine and there doesn’t seem to be money to help us here at home. I think what’s dangerous is to ignore anxieties of that sort. Austin announces new $400 million package for Ukraine SharePlay Video But the other thing is, a perception that some voters got of Trump in the middle of Covid was of someone who was going to prioritize the economy above literally everything else. If you are a person who is finding that they have to prioritize the economic well-being of their family above everything else, they see in him a kindred spirit. And I think it’s important to say, for those of us who are immigrants or descended from immigrants, that a big part of our origin story was about risking everything to be able to seek out economic opportunity to take care of our families. That’s really central to the story. And that’s why when we talk about the economy, it’s not just the economy. It’s about something so much deeper, about electing leaders who you feel get it and ultimately are going to help you be able to take care of yourself and your family. One of the big questions out there right now as Latinos move toward Trump and away from Democrats: Is this a realignment that we’re witnessing? What do you think? We’re in a situation where we thought coming into this election it was erosion, not realignment. When you look at these numbers, and you look at what was an 8.2 way shift from 2016 to 2020 and then maybe something similar now again, you have to say it certainly looks and sounds like a realignment. Knowing, of course, that realignments are neither inevitable nor irreversible, especially when you’re talking about an electorate like Latinos that have been very swingy and very dynamic, especially because it’s so fast-changing. I think we don’t know yet, but traditionally speaking, 30 to 40 percent of Latinos who vote in a given election hadn’t voted in the previous one. I expect something like that will hold up. And so that’s got a lot of churn. That’s a lot of change. I think it’s a mistake for either side to take for granted that what happened here is going to continue in a linear trend, as much as you’d have to say it certainly trended in Trump’s direction. Is this unique to Trump? It could be, but at this point, I’m almost putting that debate aside for a second, because we’ve got another four years with Trump. Had the Trump era ended last Tuesday, we could have sat back and said, “OK, now let’s see if this changes when it’s not him at the top,” but given that he’s still here — whether it’s a realignment for Republicans or for him — is a futile debate. At the end of the day, he is going to be the party leader for the foreseeable future. What are the takeaways here for Democrats? What should the new strategy be for them to reverse some of this damage with Latinos in 2026 and 2028? First of all, I think it’s helpful to understand that we’re not having a policy debate. This is a debate about culture and values, even though it’s about the economy. The economy is never just about the economy. It’s about understanding people’s priorities in their lives, what they’re going through and that they want leaders who are fighting on their side. That’s not always communicated via policy proposals. A lot of that is about showing up. It’s about them being seen in your party. I think one thing for the Democrats going forward is the example of Ruben Gallego, and other candidates like him. The future is in not shying away from being multiracial, quite the opposite — leaning into a multiracial but class-conscious kind of candidate who is progressive in their substance, but also more moderate in their style and willing to show independence. Rep. Ruben Gallego speaks with a visitor outside his office. "I think one thing for the Democrats going forward is the example of Ruben Gallego [above], and other candidates like him," Odio, co-founder of the firm Equis Research, said of Democrats winning over Latinos. | Francis Chung/POLITICO Looking at this precinct data that you’ve been collecting, what surprised you the most? I’d say we more than expected the shifts. We saw outright vote-switching in our polling fairly consistently, where people, a significant share, who said that they had voted for Biden in 2020 were saying they would vote for Trump this time around. So it didn’t surprise us that there would be a drop. I think the magnitude of the drop in the places we weren’t looking at were, in some ways, more surprising. I wasn’t surprised by Florida. I wasn’t surprised by anything in Texas. But I was surprised by New Jersey, Hudson County where I live. And New York. And these larger shifts in places like Lawrence, Massachusetts. Where do Republicans go from here? Are there any warning signs for them? I think the question for Republicans is, first of all, so many of these voters who were shifting toward him were doing that because of the twin crises of inflation and migration that hit starting in 2021, and a feeling that the Biden White House wasn’t up to tackling them. A lot of what Latinos want to see is prices going down. Even in the context of migration, it was about prices going down. Trump’s got lots of big plans. He’s putting Stephen Miller in power, he’s putting all of his loyalists around him and yet these voters we’re talking about are going to judge him on economic performance, and specifically on the cost of living. I think a warning sign for Republicans is in a way, what will be the takeaway for a low-information voter? Is it going to be about the economy? Or is it going to be about the kind of antics that we saw during the first Trump presidency? Is there something that you think has become part of the conventional wisdom that you don’t agree with or that you think needs to change? There’s so much I don’t like about conventional wisdom. I don’t think this is new, but I think we are so used to applying these large theoretical frameworks and long-term thinking during an era in which everything has been unpredictable. The idea that anything would all of a sudden become more predictable seems to be unsubstantiated by the evidence. Things can change fast. I think the mistake that anybody makes is to assume that anything that happened in 2024 is a prophecy of what is to come in the future. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigrant advocates to Biden: ‘Meet the urgency of the moment’

A coalition of 138 immigrant, civil and human rights groups is calling on President Biden to take executive action to protect certain vulnerable immigrants from President-elect Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. It’s within Biden’s reach, the groups say, to take relatively small measures that would help immigrants stay out of harm’s way before the incoming Trump administration supercharges immigration enforcement. “Our immigrant communities are at a crossroads as President-elect Trump threatens to make his campaign promises to return to a cruel and chaotic immigration system a reality,” the groups wrote in a letter to Biden. “The lives of American families — our neighbors, small business owners, farmworkers — hang in the balance so we urge the Biden-Harris administration to meet the urgency of the moment with immediate actions to protect vulnerable immigrant families, TPS holders, Dreamers and others who are at risk of mass deportation and family separation,” they said. In his first term, Trump tried to scale down programs like Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). If Trump can successfully end or significantly diminish temporary or humanitarian protections, hundreds of thousands to millions of beneficiaries could essentially be rendered undocumented overnight. The groups — including the Service Employees International Union, Latino Victory Fund, Voto Latino, Indivisible, and CASA — are asking Biden to make sure people who are eligible for those temporary programs are not tied up in the immigration detention system, where they would be an easy target for deportation. They’re also calling on the Biden administration to speed up TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure sign-ups. Those programs are available to nationals of certain designated countries that are either undergoing man-made or natural disasters, or that the United States deems too dangerous to justify repatriations. There are 863,880 outstanding grants of TPS, according to the Migration Policy Institute, meaning the government has approved that number of petitions, but the number of active beneficiaries is likely lower due to attrition. But there are also likely some remaining eligible immigrants, particularly from countries like Haiti and Venezuela, who are eligible to sign up but haven’t yet. The groups — which also include Faith In Action, Amnesty International, MomsRising, Make the Road and Human Rights First — are calling for similar protections for DACA beneficiaries. They want the Biden administration to quickly process any outstanding renewal applications and advance parole requests, which allow DACA beneficiaries to return to U.S. territory after international travel. Though DACA has often been at the forefront of the immigration debate, its pool of active beneficiaries has dwindled to about 535,000 from more than 800,000, with the Department of Homeland Security blocked from processing new applications through a court order. The groups are also calling for protections for farmworkers and seasonal workers, as well as work permit renewals and protections for asylees and refugees. Immigrant advocacy groups are by and large bracing for an unprecedented crackdown by the new Trump administration, relying on collective and individual experiences from Trump’s first Oval Office stint to identify any available legal fortifications for vulnerable immigrants. “There’s no doubt Donald Trump will impose far-reaching changes on our immigration system, dismantle legal pathways and reshape immigration enforcement as we know it. There’s no time to waste,” they wrote. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

US states urged to find new ways to block Trump’s mass deportation plan

California, home to the largest immigrant population in the US, is bracing for Donald Trump’s plan to enact the “largest deportation operation in American history”, with advocates pushing state leaders to find new and creative ways to disrupt his agenda. The Golden state led the fight against Trump’s first term, shielding many non-citizen residents from removal by restricting local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But the threat this time, immigrant rights groups say, is more extreme, and blue states across the US are facing pressure to mount an aggressive, multipronged response. “Communities that will be involved in mutual aid and self-defense are prepared,” said Chris Newman, general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a California-based group that supports immigrants. “I think many lawmakers, frankly, are not. They were primarily focused on supporting Kamala Harris, and people’s hope for the best got in the way of their preparation for the worst.” Tom Homan: Trump’s new ‘border czar’ who vowed to ‘run the biggest deportation’ the US has ever seen Trump, who built his political career on racist, xenophobic rhetoric, has said he wants to expel “as many as 20 million people” from the US in his second term. That would mark a dramatic increase from his first administration, in which he carried out several hundred thousand removals a year, in line with other recent presidents. To reach his target, Trump would have to uproot the lives of undocumented people who have lived in the US for years. He has pledged to build mass detention camps and deputize national guard troops and local police to assist the effort. In 2017, California was the first state to pass a sanctuary law under Trump. The bill prohibited local law enforcement from assisting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), and it had major effect. While local police had been transferring thousands of immigrants to Ice each year before, those numbers dwindled to the hundreds, according to advocates who reviewed state data. Nationally, Trump did not meet his overall removal goals – arresting fewer immigrants within the country and carrying out fewer deportations than Obama – in part because of California’s and other states’ sanctuary policies. Before California’s bill was signed, however, it was watered down to allow state prisons to coordinate with Ice, and to give Ice agents access to interview people in jails. The final version also weakened proposals to limit police data-sharing with Ice. Those loopholes have continued to leave many immigrants vulnerable. Activists and some lawmakers have since fought to strengthen the sanctuary policy in recent years. But California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat now styling himself as an anti-Trump leader, has repeatedly opposed those efforts, which advocates say could have made the state better equipped for Trump’s new threat of mass deportations. “California has its own culpability in feeding the deportation machine, which advocates have been pointing out for years,” said Anoop Prasad, advocacy director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, which supports incarcerated Californians. “Governor Newsom hasn’t taken action on those calls in prior years, but hopefully now he’s willing to understand the urgency.” In 2019, Newsom vetoed a bill passed by lawmakers that would have banned private security agents from entering prisons to arrest immigrants. In 2023, he vetoed another measure widely supported by legislators that would have stopped transfers from prisons to Ice. This year, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed undocumented students to be hired for campus jobs. “The state government can limit its participation in enforcement to the maximum extent possible and can provide as many benefits [to immigrants] as possible, consistent with federal law,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA. Arulanantham, an immigrant rights attorney, said research has repeatedly supported the public safety benefits of sanctuary policies, showing that jurisdictions that reduce cooperation with Ice don’t see increases in crime. “I’d hope a blue state politician would say, ‘We’re going to be evidence-based and rational and not worry about immigrants eating cats,’” he said. “The rational policy is we should not do cooperation, because there’s no evidence it makes us safer, and it tears communities apart.” He said he hoped California would expand funding for legal representation for immigrants. During Trump’s first term, California also attempted to ban private immigration detention, but was blocked in court, and Arulanantham said legislators should look at other ways to thwart the expansion of these facilities. “It’s a good time to zoom out and map the deportation system, which is interwoven throughout the state,” added Prasad. “It’s using not just state government resources, but also our airports, our roads. There are detention centers in our communities. Companies registered in the state are providing transportation to Ice to carry out deportations.” A county in Washington state blocked deportation flights from its local airport in 2019, for example, but was ultimately thwarted in court. Newsom could also pardon immigrants with old criminal records, shielding them from deportations. He has done this before in notable cases of refugees facing removal due to old cases, but his clemency rate has been lower than his predecessor, said Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney of the San Francisco public defender’s office. “That is a very important power he could tap into. These are often green card holders who’ve been in this country since they were young, faced trouble at a young age, served sentences, earned release, then are facing the double punishment of deportation.” She said she hoped lawmakers looked for ways to further limit data sharing with Ice and prevent local police from being involved in joint federal task forces that involve any immigration enforcement purposes. A spokesperson for Newsom did not respond to questions about specific proposals. The California governor has called a special legislative session for December to prepare for the Republican administration. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, will play a key role in defending the state against Trump’s agenda. He told the Guardian last week he had been preparing for months for Trump’s possible return and said the state should “reinforce and strengthen” the existing sanctuary law, without offering specifics. He said he was also prepared to hold accountable any pro-Trump county sheriffs who go rogue and attempt to assist the president-elect’s deportation agenda. If Trump wins the election, mass deportations could wreak havoc on immigrants It’s a threat advocates are increasingly monitoring. “There will be recalcitrant sheriffs in California who will try to circumvent and delegitimize the state sanctuary policy,” said Newman, noting Trump’s ties to Joe Arpaio, an infamous Arizona sheriff who brutally targeted immigrants and was convicted of criminal contempt for his actions. “There will probably be one or more sheriffs in California who want to be the next Joe Arpaio with regular appearances on Fox News.” Newman noted there were new threats from Trump this time, including cracking down on activists and using the national guard. “We’re going to have to get creative in terms of defensive measures,” he said. Local Democrats could play a key role. Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the US, said last week: “No matter where you were born, how you came to this country … Los Angeles will stand with you.” But she is now facing intense scrutiny for her new pick of LAPD chief, Jim McDonnell, who was LA sheriff in Trump’s first term and allowed immigration authorities to target people for deportation in the local jail system. Amid protests, McDonnell insisted on Friday that “LAPD will not assist with mass deportations”. Titilayọ Rasaki, policy and campaigns strategist for La Defensa, an LA-based advocacy group, said organizers were prepared. Her group was already planning to expand its court watch program to immigration courts. “We will mount a coordinated defense. Our partners will ensure people have direct representation. We will have eyes on the court. We’ll be telling the story and applying pressure in real time,” she said. “We are ready. We are resilient. We’re going to rest and lick our wounds, we’re going to hold each other. And then we’re going to fight.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

1 million migrants in the US rely on temporary protections that Trump could target

NEW YORK (AP) — Maribel Hidalgo fled her native Venezuela a year ago with a 1-year-old son, trudging for days through Panama’s Darien Gap, then riding the rails across Mexico to the United States. They were living in the U.S. when the Biden administration announced Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief. But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have promised mass deportations and suggested they would scale back the use of TPS that covers more than 1 million immigrants. They have highlighted unfounded claims that Haitians who live and work legally in Springfield, Ohio, as TPS holders were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump also amplified disputed claims made by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex. Advertisement “What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole,” Vance said at an Arizona rally in October, mentioning a separate immigration status called humanitarian parole that is also at risk. “We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status.” Related Stories Trump in Aurora, Colorado drives anti-immigrant message Trump in Aurora, Colorado drives anti-immigrant message Trump's return to White House sets stage for far-reaching immigration crackdown Trump's return to White House sets stage for far-reaching immigration crackdown Democratic state leaders prepare to battle Trump policies Democratic state leaders prepare to battle Trump policies Hidalgo wept as she discussed her plight with a reporter as her son, now 2, slept in a stroller outside the New York migrant hotel where they live. At least 7.7 million people have fled political violence and economic turmoil in Venezuela in one of the biggest displacements worldwide. “My only hope was TPS,” Hidalgo said. “My worry, for example, is that after everything I suffered with my son so that I could make it to this country, that they send me back again.” Venezuelans along with Haitians and Salvadorans are the largest group of TPS beneficiaries and have the most at stake. Advertisement Haiti’s international airport shut down this week after gangs opened fire at a commercial flight landing in Port-Au-Prince while a new interim prime minister was sworn in. The Federal Aviation Administration barred U.S. airlines from landing there for 30 days. “It’s creating a lot of anxiety,” said Vania André, editor-in-chief for The Haitian Times, an online newspaper covering the Haitian diaspora. “Sending thousands of people back to Haiti is not an option. The country is not equipped to handle the widespread gang violence already and cannot absorb all those people.” Designations by the Homeland Security secretary offer relief for up to 18 months but are extended in many cases. The designation for El Salvador ends in March. Designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela end in April. Others expire later. Federal regulations say a designation can be terminated before it expires, but that has never happened, and it requires 60 days’ notice. TPS is similar to the lesser-known Deferred Enforcement Departure Program that Trump used to reward Venezuelan exile supporters as his first presidency was ending, shielding 145,000 from deportation for 18 months. Advertisement Attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham, who successfully challenged Trump’s earlier efforts to allow TPS designations for several countries to expire, doesn’t doubt the president-elect will try again. “It’s possible that some people in his administration will recognize that stripping employment authorization for more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy” and economically disastrous, said Arulanantham, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and helps direct its Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “But nothing in Trump’s history suggests that they would care about such considerations.” Courts blocked designations from expiring for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador until well into President Joe Biden’s term. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas then renewed them. Arulanantham said he “absolutely” could see another legal challenge, depending on what the Trump administration does. Advertisement Congress established TPS in 1990, when civil war was raging in El Salvador. Members were alarmed to learn some Salvadorans were tortured and executed after being deported from the U.S. Other designations protected people during wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kuwait, from genocidal violence in Rwanda, and after volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean, in 1995 and 1997. A designation is not a pathway to U.S. permanent residence or citizenship, but applicants can try to change their status through other immigration processes. Advocates are pressing the White House for a new TPS designation for Nicaraguans before Biden leaves office. Less than 3,000 are still covered by the temporary protections issued in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch battered the country. People who fled much later under oppression from President Daniel Ortega’s government don’t enjoy the same protection from deportation. Advertisement “It’s a moral obligation” for the Biden administration, said Maria Bilbao, of the American Friends Service Committee. Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has lived in the United States illegally for 25 years, hopes Biden moves quickly. “He should do it now,” said Elena, who lives in Florida and insisted only her first name be used because she fears deportation. “Not in January. Not in December. Now.” ___ For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Immigration advocates brace for Trump: ‘Buckle up’

Immigration advocates are bracing for Trump 2.0, whose pledge of mass deportation is sending waves of panic and anger throughout the movement. Even before President-elect Trump’s resounding victory on Tuesday, immigration advocacy was facing an identity crisis after decades of relying on Hispanics as their primary voting constituency and with neither political party fully embracing their priorities. “I think that part of the challenge … has been the movement has been very insular. The movement has been focused on undocumented immigrants,” said Marielena Hincapié, a scholar at Cornell University’s Immigration Law and Policy Program. “When I was heading up the National Immigration Law Center, I would be the person to be like, ‘I’m a Latina, and this is so much more than just about [Latinos],’ right? It’s about Asian Pacific Islanders. It’s about Black immigrants. But it also has to be like, when we talk about — or the directly impacted, the directly impacted by immigration is not just someone who is undocumented, right? It’s about the U.S. citizen spouses. It’s the U.S. citizen children. It’s the business owners that are relying on them. It’s the homeowners whose houses are being rebuilt in, you know, Asheville, North Carolina, or Florida after Milton.” The immigration advocacy umbrella has grown since the first Trump administration, notably with the elevation of Haitian American civil rights groups and closer ties between advocacy and business through organizations such as the American Business Immigration Coalition. In 2023, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on Congress to move forward a series of bipartisan bills directed toward border security and immigration reform. “The antiquated legal immigration system and its woefully insufficient supply of worker visas have for years significantly hindered the ability of companies to meet their workforce needs. In addition, the vast shortcomings of the legal immigration system are a significant contributing factor to the continuing challenges at the southern border,” wrote Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the Chamber, in a letter to Congress. But neither the outgoing, divided Congress nor the Democratic-controlled Congress of the first half of the Biden administration made any headway on immigration — a pattern that’s held for nearly four decades — or on border security, a government duty that’s been institutionally stagnant but consistently growing in scope and cost over the past two decades. That’s a painful bottom line for a movement whose main goals are to modernize and humanize the immigration system and to curb the growth of the detention-deportation industrial complex. “When you look beyond the binaries served up to American voters this election cycle — a felon or democracy, toughness or chaos, a ban or a welcome — you see them as false choices that overshadow real, necessary and in many cases broadly supported policy solutions. The pressures of irregular migration and the recycling harms of crime and incarceration will not go away on their own, nor can they be blotted out by sheer bravado. They must be reckoned with in ways that create lasting change,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an organization that bridges big tech and immigration advocacy, in a statement. Trump’s victory sent private prison operator stocks soaring. Investors are betting on his promises of mass deportation and mass internment coming true, funneling millions in tax dollars to those companies. As of midday Friday, the GEO Group’s stock grew nearly 75 percent over five days, and CoreCivic stock went up nearly 68 percent. But some remain skeptical that Trump will be able to — or truly want to — build the infrastructure needed to carry out millions of deportations. “Is he going to deport 20 million people? I really don’t think so. That’s unrealistic,” said Rob Wilson, president of Employco USA, a national human resources firm. Still, Wilson said companies should prepare for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids by screening for proper work authorization. “The good thing is unemployment — it’s turned back to an employer market versus an employee market so the employers can be a little bit more selective. A couple of years ago, when people still weren’t working coming off of COVID, it was the employees who were really running the marketplace. And now those have flipped. So as an employer, I just think you’ve got a little bit more flexibility,” said Wilson. That flies contrary to two central tenets of the immigration advocacy world: belief in Trump’s threats and that the U.S. economy is dependent on undocumented labor. According to Hincapié, Democrats have historically missed the opportunity to communicate the latter. “You can just do three bullets and say that message time and time again to shift the conversation away from just the border to human beings who everybody in the United States relates to in one way or the other,” she said. “If you eat in this country, you owe that to immigrants. If you go to a restaurant. You go to, you know, shopping. You have children who need to be taken care of. You have an elderly or a family member who is ill, guess what? Who is taking care, who is rebuilding our cities after climate disasters, is immigrants, and so they just haven’t done that, right? They haven’t told the stories of who we are and who will be impacted by Trump’s agenda.” Though Trump’s immigration message has been the through line of his political career, his pledge to fix economic woes is what most resonated with voters; according to NBC News exit polling, 32 percent of voters in key states named the economy as their top issue, while only 11 percent pointed to immigration. “While the dust is still settling on how Latinos actually voted in this election, it’s clear that our community is primarily concerned with the economy and the same pocketbook issues as other Americans, such as the rising costs of food, housing and other essentials. Deep concerns with inflation and making ends meet almost singularly drove how Hispanics voted in this election,” said Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS, in a postelection statement. Of the 11 percent of voters who prioritized immigration, 90 percent voted for Republicans and only 9 percent for Democrats, showing that Vice President Harris’s immigration pitch resonated much less than her positions on abortion or on defending democracy, the top issue for 34 percent of voters in the poll. “In a year where the stakes could not be higher, young, Black, Brown, queer, and working-class communities urged Vice President Harris and Democrats as a whole to embrace pro-immigrant policies that resonate with the majority of young people,” Michelle Ming, political director of United We Dream Action, said in a statement. “By refusing to run on a bold, progressive agenda, Democrats failed to lead with the message voters needed to stop an authoritarian from taking back the White House. We demand the Biden-Harris Administration, Congress, and state and local officials across the country leave no stone unturned in delivering vital protections for immigrants at this moment. No matter what, we are ready to put our bodies on the line to protect our communities.” For decades, advocates have fought an uphill battle to keep immigration a priority for Latino voters, many of whom have never seen Congress pass significant legislation on the issue. Though the dispersion of the Latino vote — gender, national origin, age and geographical gaps tell the story of the 2024 Hispanic electorate — makes it a precarious constituency, in poll after poll large majorities of Latinos say they favor a path to citizenship. “The obligatory question is what could Democrats have done to stop the erosion among the voters that comprise their base, like Latinos. For decades, Democrats have been told they cannot assume they have absolute support among specific sectors. They have to invest and court that vote and not only go out looking for it during election season. The Democrats knew about the erosion of support among Latino men. Still, they didn’t have a sense of urgency, perhaps thinking they would win the Hispanic vote at any rate, even with a lower percentage,” wrote Maribel Hastings, a senior adviser for America’s Voice, in an op-ed widely distributed throughout Spanish-language media. America’s Voice is a leading progressive immigration advocacy group, formed by longtime advocate Frank Sharry in 2008, amid comprehensive immigration reform negotiations that momentarily brought the far sides of the political spectrum to the same table. Even before Trump’s first term, lines of communication between immigration advocates and restrictionists had been severed, and there will be little motivation to mend that rift in a second Trump administration. But immigrant advocates have been laying the groundwork for advocacy on economic terms, highlighting immigrants, documented and undocumented, as a force in both the labor and consumer markets, and they see an opening to engage a broader electorate concerned with civil rights under Trump. “I know that there is a broader political constituency that we haven’t been tapping into, and that that is who we need to build with. And frankly, I would say that there are a lot of people that supported Trump, that voted for Trump, that voted because of the economic issues or for other issues, or because, you know, strong man attitude, like whether it was machismo that led that, whatever, for whatever reason, we need to bring them back. We need to get them to understand,” said Hincapié. The prevailing frustration and anger in the immigration advocacy world is not only directed at Trump, but at those voters. “Despite everything, people in the United States gave him a second term,” wrote Hastings in her Spanish-language op-ed. “Buckle up because there is a lot of turbulence ahead.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump expected to nominate Kristi Noem for homeland security secretary

President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, according to four sources familiar with the decision. As homeland security secretary, Noem would oversee a number of key federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard. Trump has told Noem that she is his pick for DHS secretary, according to two sources familiar with the decision. Noem, 52, has no significant experience with homeland security issues but has voiced support for Trump's hard-line immigration policies. She has defended her fellow Republican governors in their efforts to crack down on migrants in their states. In January, for example, she said in remarks that there was an "invasion" at the U.S.-Mexico border and said that her administration was considering helping Texas deter immigration at the southern border by sending it security personnel and razor wire. In response, members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota banned her from their reservation. Noem has criticized President Joe Biden's handling of the border, echoing Trump's arguments that violent criminals are flooding into the country. "He is ignoring federal law and allowing people into this country that are incredibly dangerous," she said in an interview in June on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And just this week I think we had four different people that were attacked or raped or murdered by illegal immigrants that have come in over our open border. And that cannot continue to happen." Asked in the interview about Trump's possible plans to pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters, she dodged the question and said t would be his prerogative. "I believe that Donald Trump, when he comes back to the White House and is in charge of this country, we’re going to have incredible opportunities to show that people in this country will be safer, that we’ll have law and order back in our streets," she said. "If you look at one of the most violent areas of our country is often Democrat-run cities, sanctuary cities with an open border." Noem had been viewed as a possible vice presidential running mate for Trump in this cycle, but she was dogged by her admission in her book published in the spring that she had once shot and killed her dog. Recommended 2024 Election Republican Eric Hovde refuses to concede Wisconsin Senate race, casts doubt on the results Donald Trump Trump to name William McGinley to be White House counsel "I would say that that was a story from 20 years ago about me protecting my children from a vicious animal," she said on "Meet the Press." "So we’ve covered that, and any mom in those situations when you have an animal that’s viciously killing livestock and attacking people it’s a tough decision." Noem, who has been governor of South Dakota since 2019, was a member of the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019 and the state House from 2007 to 2011. Similar to Trump's other allies, Noem had signaled support for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. In separate interviews on CNN in April and May, she wouldn't say whether she would have certified that election and refused to say whether Vice President Mike Pence acted appropriately when he did certify Biden's victory. Noem is the latest in a flurry of picks Trump has made to join his second administration. He has so far announced Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N.; Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff; former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Tom Homan to be “border czar,” a role that Trump said will oversee all of the administration's deportation efforts. Homan, who was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, is an advocate of hard-line immigration policies and has vowed to carry out mass deportations, a major campaign promise of Trump's. Two people familiar with Trump's decision said that Homan was not vying for homeland security secretary. Trump is also expected to name Stephen Miller, another immigration hard-liner, to be White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller was a senior White House adviser during Trump's first term, when he helped plan two of the administration's most controversial policies: family separations and the so-called Muslim ban. NBC News has reported that Trump has also selected Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., as national security adviser and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as secretary of state. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Trump’s return to White House sets stage for far-reaching immigration crackdown

“Build the Wall” was Donald Trump’s rally cry in 2016, and he acted on his promise by tapping military budgets for hundreds of miles of border wall with Mexico. “Mass Deportation” was the buzzword that energized supporters for his White House bid in 2024. Trump’s victory sets the stage for a swift crackdown after an AP VoteCast survey showed the president-elect’s supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation — issues the Republican has been hammering throughout his campaign. How and when Trump’s actions on immigration will take shape is uncertain. While Trump and his advisers have offered outlines, many questions remain about how they would deport anywhere close to the 11 million people estimated to be in the country illegally. How would immigrants be identified? Where would they be detained? What if their countries refuse to take them back? Where would Trump find money and trained officers to carry out their deportation? Advertisement Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country the U.S. is at war with. He has spoken about deploying the National Guard, which can be activated on orders from a governor. Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, has said troops under sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate. More election coverage Image Live updates: Biden says ‘America endures,’ promises peaceful transition Image Biden gets blamed by Harris allies for the vice president’s resounding loss to Trump Image How 5 key groups voted in 2024: AP VoteCast Trump, who repeatedly referred to immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the United States, has stricken fear in immigrant communities with words alone. Julie Moreno, a U.S. citizen who has been married for seven years to a Mexican man who is in the country illegally, is adjusting to the idea that she may have to live separately from her husband, who came to the United States in 2004. She can move to Mexico from New Jersey but it would be nearly impossible to keep running her business importing boxing gloves. Advertisement “I don’t have words yet, too many feelings,” Moreno said, her voice breaking as she spoke Wednesday of Trump’s victory. “I am very scared for my husband’s safety. … If they detain him, what is going to happen?” Moreno’s husband, Neftali Juarez, ran a construction business and feels he has contributed to the country, paying taxes and providing employment through his company. “Unfortunately, the sentiment of the people who voted is different,” he said. “I feel horrible losing my wife.” Some policy experts expect Trump’s first immigration moves to be at the border. He may pressure Mexico to keep blocking migrants from reaching the U.S. border as it has since December. He may lean on Mexico to reinstate a Trump-era policy that made asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions, highlighted campaign remarks by Vice President-elect JD Vance that deporting millions would be done one step at a time, not all at once. “You’re not talking about a dragnet,” Arthur, a former immigration judge, told The Associated Press. “There’s no way you could do it. The first thing you have to do is seal the border and then you can address the interior. All of this is going to be guided by the resources you have available.” Advertisement Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has been living in the United States illegally for 25 years, couldn’t sleep after Trump’s victory, crying about what to do if she and her husband, 50, are deported. They have two adult daughters, both U.S. citizens, who have had stomach pain and respiratory problems from anxiety about the election. What to know about the 2024 election: The latest: White evangelical voters showed steadfast support for Donald Trump in the election, and some supporters of Kamala Harris are attributing some of the blame for her loss to President Joe Biden. Balance of power: Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate, giving the GOP a major power center in Washington. Control over the House of Representatives is still up for grabs. AP VoteCast: Trump slightly expanded his coalition to include several groups that have traditionally been a part of the Democratic base. AP journalists break down the voter data. Voto a voto: Sigue la cobertura de AP en español de las elecciones en EEUU. News outlets globally count on the AP for accurate U.S. election results. Since 1848, the AP has been calling races up and down the ballot. Support us. Donate to the AP. “It is so difficult for me to uproot myself from the country that I have seen as my home,” said Elena, who lives in South Florida and gave only her first name for fear of being deported. “I have made my roots here and it is difficult to have to abandon everything to start over.” Advocates are looking at where deportation arrests might take place and are watching especially closely to see if authorities adhere to a longstanding policy of avoiding schools, hospitals, places of worship and disaster relief centers, said Heidi Altman, federal advocacy director for the National Immigration Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Fund. Advertisement “We’re taking it very seriously,” said Altman. “We all have to have our eyes wide open to the fact that this isn’t 2016. Trump and Stephen Miller learned a lot from their first administration. The courts look very different than they did four years ago.” Trump is expected to resume other far-reaching policies from his first term and jettison key Biden moves. These include: —Trump has harshly criticized Biden policies to create and expand legal pathways to entry, including an online app called CBP One under which nearly 1 million people have entered at land crossings with Mexico since January 2023. Another policy has allowed more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to fly into the country with financial sponsors. Advertisement — Trump slashed the number of refugees screened abroad by the United Nations and State Department for settlement in the U.S. to its lowest level since Congress established the program in 1980. Biden rebuilt it, establishing an annual cap of 125,000, up from 18,000 under Trump. —Trump sought to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded people who came to the U.S. as young children from deportation. A lawsuit by Republican governors that has seemed headed for the Supreme Court challenges DACA. For now, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients may renew their status but new applications aren’t accepted. —Trump dramatically curtailed the use of Temporary Protected Status, created under a 1990 law to allow people already in the United States to stay if their homelands are deemed unsafe. Biden sharply expanded use of TPS, including to hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Venezuelans. Maribel Hernandez, a Venezuelan on TPS that allows her to stay in the United States until April 2025, burst into tears as her 2-year-old son slept in a stroller outside New York’s Roosevelt Hotel as migrants discussed election fallout Wednesday. “Imagine if they end it,” she said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.