Effective immediately

Pastor Paco Amador knew the members of New Life Community Church had been on edge since Donald Trump won the election. But he was still surprised when two of the Venezuelan couples he married at the Chicago church told him they were moving their families back to Venezuela.

One of them is already gone. The wife left with her mother and kids while her husband stayed to continue working so he could support his family while they traveled home. But he also plans to self-deport. “He will follow them,” Amador said. “They sort of just closed down this dream.”

Amador doesn’t know whether the families had legal immigration status, a question he usually doesn’t ask his church members. He attributes their departures to the fear of mass deportations that’s spreading in their community. “Nobody really knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “Everything feels like it could topple.”

New Life Community Church is situated in Chicago’s historic Mexican community of Little Village, though a recent influx of immigrants from Central and South America has transformed the neighborhood. The Windy City has received more than 51,000 new arrivals from the U.S.-Mexico border since August 31, 2022, according to the city’s online dashboard.

It is still unclear how mass deportations will play out. Trump started working on his immigration agenda on Monday when he signed a stack of executive orders hours after taking the oath of office inside the U.S. Capitol. Most of the orders aim to increase security at the U.S.-Mexico border, while his more controversial measures restrict asylum and refugee pathways and revamp the rules of receiving American citizenship.

Declaring a national emergency

Among the orders he signed on Monday, the president declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. He said the United States’ sovereignty is under attack from an invasion of criminal gangs, human traffickers, and illicit narcotics, noting that over the last four years, authorities have encountered roughly 8 million illegal immigrants along the southern border. Declaring a national emergency allows the administration to tap into disaster resources. In 2019, Trump made a similar declaration to help fund the building of a border wall.

Trump pointed to Article IV, Section Four of the U.S. Constitution, which says the federal government has the obligation to protect the states from invasion and domestic violence. He said the federal government has failed in this obligation to the states by allowing enforcement at the southern border to spiral out of control. His order calls on the Department of Defense to deploy military units to assist the Department of Homeland Security in obtaining “complete operational control” of the southern border. The action also directs the two departments to coordinate with state governors to construct physical barriers.

“[Trump’s order] really shows you how easy it is from one person to the next to radically change how we approach border security,” said Selene Rodriguez, the campaign director for the Secure & Sovereign Texas campaign at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She expects Texas to continue its state-level border security efforts despite Trump’s pledge to seal the border.

“A multijurisdictional approach is really required to achieve security, and so we will fully be maintaining our permanent role in national security,” she said. “We are very excited to work with our federal partners to do so.”

Rodriguez called Trump’s order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations “well overdue.” The designation includes the emerging Venezuelan street gang, Tren de Aragua, and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and directs the Department of Homeland Security to expedite the removal of cartel and gang members.

Pushing pause on refugee resettlement

With another signature, Trump also paused the United States’ refugee resettlement program, which Biden capped at 125,000 refugees last year. After a 90-day evaluation period, the secretaries of state and homeland security will report back to the president about whether resuming the program is in the United States’ best interest.

Last year, the United States resettled more than 100,000 refugees, the most the country had welcomed in three decades. About 29,500 of them were persecuted Christians. Like asylum-seekers, refugees must show that they have a credible fear of targeted persecution on account of their race, religion, social status, or political affiliation. But, unlike asylum-seekers, refugees undergo years of vetting before they enter the country. The Office of Refugee Resettlement works with 10 major resettlement agencies to find housing and employment for the participants. After a year in the United States, refugees can apply for permanent residency.

Trump characterized the pause as a “realigning” of the program, arguing the United States is unable to absorb large numbers of migrants. Matthew Soerens is the vice president of advocacy and policy for World Relief, which worked with the federal government to resettle 8,894 refugees last year. “We’re disappointed with that suspension,” Soerens said, noting that the order “does leave some hope that the settlement program could resume” after the assessment period.

If Trump resumes the program but still cuts the refugee cap dramatically, it will take resettlement organizations years to recoup their resources and infrastructure, Soerens warned. He pointed to the lingering effects of restrictions under Trump’s last administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite Biden raising the upper limit on the number of refugees who could enter the United States, numbers remained low at the beginning of his administration.

Trump’s executive action pointed to cities overwhelmed by new arrivals such as Springfield, Ohio. Soerens disputed tying instances of infrastructure squeeze to the resettlement program. He said many of the immigrants in those cities entered on temporary parole programs and didn’t have the support that comes with the resettlement process.

Restricting asylum

In another wide-ranging order, Trump effectively eliminated the only legal pathway for individuals to request asylum by ending the use of a Customs and Border Protection mobile app that allowed immigrants to request appointments to enter the United States. If an immigrant receives an appointment and meets basic vetting requirements, CBP officers release them into the country to await their court hearings. In his order, Trump said the app facilitated “the entry of otherwise inadmissible aliens into the United States.”

“So halfway through the day, 30,000 already-set appointments—folks who have been waiting five to eight months—were canceled at a moment's notice,” said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. One video posted to X showed a migrant woman crying after she learned her appointment for 1 p.m. at the El Paso, Texas, port of entry was canceled on Monday.

Immigrants must once again wait across the border in Mexico until their asylum hearing since Trump also reinstated the Migrant Protection Protocols, more commonly known as the Remain in Mexico program. Biden terminated the program in 2022 after a protracted legal battle.

The president’s order also halted a two-year humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans. It is unclear whether Trump’s order strips current parolees of status or allows them to continue benefiting from the program until their two years expire, Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute noted during a press call on Tuesday morning.

Trump directed DHS to detain immigrants who violate immigration law until they are removed “to the fullest extent permitted by law.” He also instructed the agency to stop releasing individuals into the country with notices to appear in immigration court, a practice known as catch-and-release.

Reinterpreting birthright citizenship

Perhaps Trump’s most controversial mandate, an order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” attempts to reinterpret birthright citizenship. It bars any future child born in the United States from automatic citizenship if the mother is residing in the country unlawfully at the time of his or her birth. Children born to mothers on legal but temporary statuses, such as tourist, work, or student visas, are also ineligible for citizenship.

The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which grants birthright citizenship, reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Diplomats, for instance, are subject to the laws of their home country rather than the laws of the United States.

Trump’s order argues illegal immigrants are not subject to the United States’ jurisdiction, nor are those residing in the U.S. temporarily, so they should not be eligible for birthright citizenship. Children born to lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, still qualify for birthright citizenship, the order states, and so do the children of undocumented mothers who are married to a citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Murray, with the National Immigration Forum, warned that if courts uphold the order, the change could create a large population of what she called “stateless children.”

Under the order, the federal government will not recognize citizenship documents state and local governments issue to the children of illegal immigrants. That could inspire some local municipalities to require residents to prove that both of the parents were in the United States legally before they issue a birth certificate, Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute, said during Tuesday’s press call.

“Birthright citizenship has been a debate in our country for a long time,” he said, though he added the predominant legal view holds that illegal immigrants are subject to the laws of the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union has already filed a legal challenge, and so have attorneys general in22 states. Chishti expects the question will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.