In 2023, 47.8 million immigrants lived in the United States, including naturalized, permanent and temporary residents, and unauthorized immigrants.
At the same time, about one million people were seeking asylum at the southern border, according to the Pew Research Center. Two years later, the intended stability these people were looking for vanished.
The start of the Trump-JD Vance administration on January 20, 2025 had among the high points of its political agenda the attack on immigrant population in the name of “national security” and border protection.
An increment of soldiers on the southern border, deployment of ICE agents, and deportations of undocumented immigrants to third countries frighten the immigrant community. So much so that “four in ten immigrants (43%) say they are very worried or somewhat worried, a ten–point increase since March,” explains the Pew Research Center in a report published on June 27, 2025.
They add that “34% of U.S.-born adults with at least one immigrant parent (second generation) are concerned about deportations, as are 17% of those with U.S.-born parents (third generation or older).”
The Pew Research Center notes that “in June 2025, 51.9 million immigrants lived in the U.S., representing 15.4% of the national population. This number has gone down comparing to January, when a record 53.3 million immigrants were in the U.S. (15.8%), the highest percentage on record.
The Center notes that this figure may be subject to error due to lower survey response rates among migrants.
Currently, the fear of being reported and deported is a reality in migrant communities. This has a direct impact on their participation in citizen and community activities. However, the current migrant landscape did not emerge out of nowhere but has clear roots in Donald Trump’s 2017-2020 term.
First Term: Prelude
On January 25, 2017 Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13767 and 13768, ordering the construction of a border wall with Mexico, and the deployment of 10,000 immigration officers to expeditiously deport immigrants accused of crimes. In addition, the Order stated that “sanctuary jurisdictions throughout the United States deliberately violate federal law to protect aliens from deportation. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very essence of our Republic.”
Entry limitations were also placed on travelers from countries that, according to the government, refused to provide information on anti-terrorism policies and failed to comply with U.S. governance standards.
Anti-immigrant positions hardened with Order 13768 instructing to “support victims and families of victims of crimes committed by deportable aliens” when apprehending immigrants. However, between March and November, the administration created The El Paso Initiative to apprehend undocumented immigrants at the border and taking them to detention centers for prosecution. This meant separating parents from their children. Although this was a pilot test, some 280 families were separated, according to a DOJ report.
In April 2018, the Department of Justice issued the Zero Tolerance Act against any unauthorized entry into the country prior awareness of family separations. The order received lawsuits and discontent, but the administration insisted on its necessity:
The Department of Justice did not inform the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO), or the Marshals Service (USMS) of their roles under this law. The latter stated it had no policies or procedures to facilitate parent-child communication.
This resulted in random separations with no link connecting parents transferred to the USMS and children under supervision of the Department of Human Services (DHS). The USAO was asked for a list of the children and their parents, but they could not facilitate it, admitting they did not have that information.
After numerous protests from federal and popular judges, this policy was terminated in June 2018. However, as stated by DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), between May 5 and June 20, 2018, more than 3.000 minors were separated from their parents when crossing the border.
On November 9, 2018, Proclamation 9822 was passed, accentuating the immigration standoff. This order expedited deportations to Mexico of anyone who attempted to enter the country from the southern border without authorization and did not have credible fears to justify their entry.
In January 2019, the migratory confrontation was aggravated when 1.375 billion USD were destined for the construction of the wall. Under allegation of a humanitarian crisis at the border, the government activated the National Emergency status (Proclamation 9844), allocating 8 billion USD.
The Quédate en Mexico policy (Remain in Mexico – MPP) was launched, impacting mainly South American migrants waiting for their asylum process in that country. The Third-Country Transit Bar, another rule from July, 2019, denied asylum to anyone who did not apply for it in “a third country on their route to the United States.”
In sum, another Order ruled that being a “public charge”—receiving SNAP benefits, Medicaid, or public housing assistance—was an aggravating factor when applying for residency. According to a 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation estimate, “79% of noncitizen residents who originally entered the United States without lawful permanent residency display at least one characteristic which could harm them under the new ‘public charge’” rule. Another estimation regarding medical benefits notes that “between 2 million and 4.7 million Medicaid or CHIP recipients” could waive the programs so as not to affect their Green Card status.
In 2020, with the arrival of the COVID pandemic, the entry of Chinese nationals was restricted, and statements blaming the country for the spread of the virus incited xenophobia at home and abroad.
To protect public health, Title 42 was applied to restrict the entry of people from countries with communicable diseases. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), between March 21, 2020 and May 11, 2023, Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations removed 579,084 migrants under this authority. This was the first time the Order was used for immigration control purposes.
This mandate also attempted an “orderly transition and liquidation” of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to outlaw migrant minors already residing in the country, but the Supreme Court rejected the petition.
Coupled with the intention to eliminate sanctuary cities and voter ID laws vetoed by the Court, presidential policies further demonstrated their anti-immigrant position.
New Measures, New Borders (Second Term)
In 2023, during Joe Biden’s term, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that a total of thirty-one million immigrants were working in the United States, representing about 19% of the civilian labor force. Documented or undocumented workers represented 67% of the labor force, exceeding by 5 percentage points those born in the United States.
Nonetheless, the anti-immigration campaign has been the focus of the current administration. When Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025 he implemented Securing Our Borders claiming that “the United States has suffered an unprecedented large-scale invasion” and that his administration will mobilize “all available resources and authorities” to stop it.
Among those measures, there is an order to build a physical wall and deploy personnel to the southern border, as proposed in his first term. Another prevents the entry of unauthorized aliens, prosecuting them to “the fullest extent of the law,” and expelling them “without delay.” Another ends the catch-and-release policy which allows migrants to enter the country after being apprehended at the border and screened for entry. In addition, he called for increased scrutiny to validate family relationships between aliens encountered or detained by the Department of Homeland Security.
This was just the beginning. Donald Trump ordered ICE to raid places considered sanctuaries such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship, announcing the deportation of 538 undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, he appointed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security who, under the slogan of Make America Safe Again, commands the detention and criminalization operations towards migrants: “Attempts to illegally cross the border are at the lowest levels ever recorded. More than 100,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended. If you are here illegally, you will be next.”
This discourse is not far from the one advocated in 2018 by Session, first-term Attorney General, during the Zero Tolerance policy when he said, “If you cross a border illegally, we will prosecute you.”
How Accepted Migration Becomes Outlawed and Dangerous
Persecution at the border became internal persecution. Mandate 47 shut down both the “CBP One” application “as a method of granting parole or facilitating entry,” and the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), authorized on January 5, 2023. These citizens were required to have a sponsor in the United States who would provide financial support, and they had to undergo “rigorous security checks” developed by the U.S. immigration authorities. However, the current administration suspended these programs and asked for case revision.
Months later the legal status of about 500,000 migrants who had entered legally by this route was terminated. They all received a letter asking them to self-deport in exchange for travel assistance and a $1000 USD voucher, which translates into at least $500,000,000 USD budgeted for this purpose.
On February 2, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, Hondurans, Nepalese, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Afghans was terminated, claiming that the conditions were not applicable anymore. This law was created in 1999 to shelter migrants from Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Venezuela, South Sudan, Somalia, Nepal, Cameroon, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Conditions included coming from armed or environmental danger and offered work permits, protection against deportation, and travel authorizations for humanitarian reasons in their countries of origin.
The data reveals that around 1,226,557 people have been accepted in this country under TPS and would be considered illegal if the conditions to legalize their status changed. The reasons for removal, according to USCIS, are that those countries have improved their environmental disaster response capabilities and are experiencing economic growth. In the cases of Haiti, Venezuela, and Afghanistan, the nationals pose an alleged danger to national security.
There Is Money for Fear Camps
On February 3, 2025, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, signed an agreement to send individuals identified as undocumented migrants from the Salvadoran MS-13 gang, Venezuelans from Tren de Aragua, and from any other country. The agreement also includes dangerous U.S. criminals, including U.S. citizens and legal residents.”
Under President Trump’s direction, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported nearly 300 Tren de Aragua and MS-13 terrorists to the Terrorism Confinement Center (TTCEC) in El Salvador, where they no longer pose a threat to the American people, reads Kristi Noem’s 100-day report, head of the Department of Homeland Security.
This administration has assigned Guantanamo Bay (occupied military territory in Cuba), Alligator Alcatraz (Miami), and the Speedway Slammer (Indiana) as the facilities that will receive migrants. According to the same report, they have arrested so far more than 352,000 undocumented immigrants and expelled more than 324,000 people. Meanwhile, “70% of ICE arrests correspond to undocumented immigrants with criminal charges or convictions in the U.S.” If this is so, where does the other 30% come from?
One of them is Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran sent to TTCEC after being captured in a Maryland store despite having protection from deportation by the Court. After weeks of family grievances and a dispute among the Court, the U.S. and the Salvadoran governments, he was returned, claiming it was “a clerical error” but insisting he was a member of MS-13.
DHS, on behalf of Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Trump, regularly publish lists under the slogan “Worst of the Worst” depicting the faces of captured people and a short description of the crime without hyperlinks to verify data.
A physiognomic profile is visible: mostly men of mixed-race skin, from Latin American countries, followed by Asians and Africans with tattoos. The photos do not have a similar pattern in the background to indicate that they were taken in official facilities.
More detention centers are planned. The One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) sets aside $5 billion USD for “the lease, acquisition, construction, design, or improvement of facilities and checkpoints” operated by U.S. CBP. In addition, it allocates $45 billion to ICE for the detention of single adult aliens and families.
Incidentally, on August 14, 2025, a report on Kristi Noem’s 200 days was released stating that 13,000 unaccompanied children were found. No information has been provided on their status nor on the restructuring of communication channels between children and parents and/or procedures to locate their legal guardians. This was foreshadowed in the first term when the family communication trail was lost during the zero-tolerance policy and the El Paso Initiative.
Nationalism and Migration
In the name of national security, the President made English the official language of the country on March 1st, 2024, releasing agencies from the obligation of offering services and information in several languages. This hinders information access for different non-English-speaking migrant communities. In 2019 alone, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic were spoken in more than 49 million households.
This Executive Order was the prelude to the one issued on April 28, 2025: Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers, which advocates for changing the parameters to become a truck driver and includes higher English language requirements.
The objective is said to ensure road safety because, without English proficiency, relevant tasks cannot be performed. However, one of its sections specifies endorsement of U.S. truck drivers. This statement is made in a statistical panorama where, out of 3,578,000 truck drivers in the country, about 869,000 are Hispanic (24.3%).
More Walls for Protection against More External Enemies
In June 2025, the government fully restricted the entry of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen citizens, and partially limited entry to migrants from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
This foreign policy exercise rebukes citizens because their country of origin “maintains inadequate identity management or information-sharing policies or poses some other risk to the national security of the United States,” as cited by the President in the Order.
The Order is based on first-term Proclamation 9645 and 9983, later withdrawn in the Joe Biden administration. For example, Chad is back on the list; other countries such as the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Togo have been added because of their current no-concessions position towards the United States.
Internal Enemy Detector
Children who crossed the border alone or accompanied, and those born to undocumented parents, are known as Dreamers. The decision’s non-enforcement allows them to remain here with a legal status; however, in his first administration, the contemporary president had already questioned its validity.
In 2025, Tricia McLaughlin, told NPR that “undocumented immigrants who claim to be DACA beneficiaries are not automatically protected from deportations.”
USCIS reported in January that it will continue to accept initial DACA applications but will not process them at this time. The law protecting Dreamers also came under attack from the U.S. District Court for Texas’ Southern District which deemed it illegal in September 2023.
According to a report by The Independent published on July 16, 2025, and based on data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) and the Office of Homeland Security Status, “since Trump’s inauguration in January, judges have ordered the deportation of more than 53,000 immigrant minors.” In April alone, 8,317 infants aged 11 or younger received a departure request.
Meanwhile, the research mentions that approximately 15,000 children are under four years old, and 20,000, between four and eleven years old. In addition, adolescents are experiencing an increase in deportations, reaching 17,000, “although that figure is lower than its historical peak in 2020, during the first Trump administration.”
The idea that only undocumented immigrants will be prosecuted has been shattered with Executive Order 14188 (Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism), where the President rescinds EO 13899, from his first term, calling for the protection of “American Jews to the same extent as all other American citizens.”
The government’s discursive and political position is:
“The October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks against the people of Israel […] unleashed an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and campuses. Jewish students have faced a relentless barrage of discrimination.”
The new Order authorizes the employment of “all available legal tools” against anti-Semitic actions and requires universities to monitor and report on foreign personnel who hold an anti-Israel position, with the possibility of “expelling such foreign nationals.”
Although there is no mention of the Palestinian population in the Order, arrests of pro-Palestinian activists signal another persecution wave. In March, graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a notable participant in the Columbia University protests, was arrested by ICE for deportation, cancelling his student visa.
Mohsen Mahdawi, another leader of demonstrations against the war in Gaza at Columbia University, was arrested. This happened when he was attending an immigration appointment to apply for citizenship.
The judges in both cases prevented the deportation of these individuals. Nevertheless, Trump wrote on his Truth account:
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity […] We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country —never to return again.”
In the name of national security, the President restricted Harvard from enrolling foreign students as a way to impede collaboration with “foreign adversaries.” He declared himself against cooperation between the university and Chinese institutions, calling Harvard “the university of the Chinese Communist party” outside the Asian region.
Trump has also accused it of failing to control anti-Semitic incidents and maintaining “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals in its admissions, denying hardworking Americans.” Two multimillion dollar-worth DHS grants to Harvard were also denied for these reasons.
Universities in Tennessee, Oregon, and California have also reported visa cancellations of some of their foreign students without being given any precise reasons, although they are associated with activism. This scenario, added to the anti-immigrant sentiment, makes the foreign student community fear cancellation of their enrollment and scholarships.
New Barriers Bring Inequality Traps
The government has spoken out against subsidies to health insurance and educational plans, withdrawing funds because of their alleged DEI stance. To consolidate the official standpoint, orders such as Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) and the BBB were issued.
On March 7, 2025, the Trump administration published an order for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, ending student loan forgiveness with the use of public funds. These loans are allegedly used to “pay pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas activists and criminals.” The order is also a measure to deter U.S. students toward activism, when they should be “working in essential public service jobs, such as nursing,” rather than in activist groups.
It also reinstates the Mexico City Policy to stop federal funding of abortion abroad and an end to radical indoctrination in elementary and secondary education.
Meanwhile, on July 2, the Department of Education agreed to amend Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) regulations, justifying that “illegal activities, including illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, widespread damage to public property, and disruption of public order are a threat.”
This measure withdraws subsidies, grants, and support to organizations providing different migrant communities with multilingual services, access to health and education services, or sending humanitarian aid to territories in conflict.
At the same time, the “Presidential Commission to Make America Healthy Again” was established. Although intended to combat the population’s physical and mental health problems, it devotes several sections to attacking access of migrants and low-income people to public benefits, such as SNAP.
This order is based on the MAHA Report, a document which states that SNAP beneficiaries “face worsening health outcomes compared to non-participants, and are at greater risk of disease,” an argument used to limit access to health plans.
It is worth noting that the commercial food industry in the United States produces a large number of affordable ultra-processed products. Meanwhile, healthy and organic food is becoming increasingly expensive, making it inaccessible for low-income people in their SNAP budget.
The One Big Beautiful Bill supports these measures. As of now, to access SNAP or Medicaid, foreigners must meet more requirements, and the FY 2026 budget allocated to them is $10,000,000 USD until used.
This plan also modifies tax credit. To apply for refunds, both parents must have a social security number, which will affect blended or immigrant families. One of its critical points is the increase in tax credit which, although at first glance, it appears to be tax relief per child, it is the opposite in terms of access to resources.
Those who would save the most, under this bill, would be company owners who will also pay less taxes, i.e., they will have more capital. The established amounts allowed money to be used for public and subsidized services for low-income people, but the application of the BBB at the end of the year will prove to be an inequality trap.
In addition, provision 71113 forbids Medicaid from covering clinics such as Planned Parenthood and non-profit organizations which provide reproductive health services, family planning, safe abortions, cancer screenings, and STI and contraceptive treatments. Although Planned Parenthood does not offer an exact figure on how many migrants it serves, as it is not a requirement for medical care, it is estimated that it’s more than 1 million.
Conditions for Survival in the Borderlands
In summary, the United States now has more borders within its territory. While the visa cap may be a foreign policy decision, in daily practice, it undermines the stability of millions of migrants striving to achieve the well–publicized “American Dream.”
However, there are no surprises. Both in the 2017 term and in the current one, there is an evident persecution of those who are different. The capture of migrants has a notably discriminatory and ethnic profiling; the discourse justifying these actions is nationalistic. Cultural value and economic contribution are dismissed, and sexual and identity diversity is the new enemy.
In 2017, the “big surprise” was an immigration policy which separated more than 3 thousand minors from their guardians without preserving the communication link: the world saw them in the news sleeping under aluminum blankets.
In 2025, there are no surprises. No one capable of apprehending minors without family present will delay closing their borders, expelling migrants to third countries without due process, and taking away the legal status of documented immigrants. No one capable of attacking children stops short of erasing social and demographic statistics, censoring words and data about women, undermining the rights of the LGBTIQ community, minimizing access to health care and basic food plans for those barely getting by.
Saying “It doesn’t affect me” wasn’t helpful before. Nor is it now because, little by little, these oppressive measures are catching up with us. It began with children; now it could be all of us.
The consequences of the changes detailed here are about to be felt, but it is worth remembering that each migrant home is a little piece of their place of origin. Destroying them strikes against the productive force and the values that contribute to this country.
By: Centro Integral de la Mujer Madre Tierra Editorial Team.
“Este contenido forma parte de la serie Más allá del miedo: Respuestas comunitarias al nuevo ciclo de criminalización de los migrantes, un proyecto de periodismo de soluciones del Centro Integral de la Mujer Madre Tierra, en colaboración con PhillyCAM y Kensington Voice, con el apoyo de Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative”.
