President-elect Donald Trump will rewrite America’s immigration system with a series of 10 executive actions Monday deploying the military to the southern border, directing completion of his wall, ending birthright citizenship and declaring cartels to be terrorist organizations.
He will begin by declaring a national emergency at the border and ordering the Pentagon to use National Guard and active-duty military troops to help in repelling what the new Trump administration describes as an “invasion.”
“This invasion has caused widespread chaos and suffering in our country,” an incoming White House senior official told reporters in previewing the moves ahead of Mr. Trump’s swearing in.
Mr. Trump will also flex executive powers to declare an end to automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants, creating an early constitutional battle for the new president. Most legal scholars say that ending birthright citizenship requires at least a change in the law by Congress or even an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Mr. Trump will issue a proclamation to close the border, which aides said will end asylum claims. Those claims have fueled the catch-and-release practice that led to millions of illegal immigrants settling in the U.S. over the last four years.
The new administration will also revive the Remain in Mexico policy.
The moves eviscerate the lenient immigration system President Biden built over the last four years and replace it with the most fervent enforcement regime in modern history.
Trump officials say the border chaos under Mr. Biden — and the new president’s plans to tackle it — were a large part of his election victory, and they see the moves he’s making Monday as carrying out that mandate.
That starts with an order officially assigning border security to the Department of Defense as a valid military mission and ordering the Pentagon to repel an invasion of “mass migration,” drug traffickers and human smuggling.
“We are going to declare a national emergency at the border. What this action does is it deploys armed forces, erects physical barriers by directing DOD and DHS [Department of Homeland Security] secretaries to finish the wall along the border and allows for [counter drone] capabilities along the southern border,” the senior official said.
Many of Monday’s actions are declarations of intent, and the details remain to be worked out. That includes decisions on how many troops will be deployed and what their roles will be.
Mr. Trump’s order declaring cartels as global terrorist organizations has long been demanded by Republicans on Capitol Hill.
He will specifically target Tren de Aragua, a vicious Venezuelan gang whose members have infiltrated the U.S. to a striking degree in the last few years. Mr. Trump will employ the Alien Enemies Act to declare the gang an “irregular armed force” of Venezuela’s government, engaged in a predatory “incursion” into the U.S.
The new administration will also impose a four-month halt on refugee resettlement.
Even as Mr. Trump takes unilateral action, Congress — now fully under Republican leadership — is moving to hand him new tools.
The Senate is poised to vote later Monday on the Laken Riley Act, which would order the detention of illegal immigrants who commit even minor crimes of theft or shoplifting. The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student slain last year by an illegal immigrant who was caught and released under Biden policies, amassed a criminal record including shoplifting but was allowed to remain out on the streets. Authorities say the man’s family has ties to Tren de Aragua.
For now, Congress remains a sideshow on immigration as Mr. Trump claims expansive executive powers to act on his own.
His attempt to curtail asylum claims is certain to draw legal challenges, as will the move to end birthright citizenship.
Legal scholars say that right is generally seen as enshrined in the 14th Amendment, which 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.”
Trump officials say illegal immigrants don’t qualify as “subject to the jurisdiction” and so there is room for a president to make that declaration.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.