President Trump and Migration Policy

Abstract

The US is home to a fifth of the world’s 260 million immigrants; but about one in four of the 48 million foreign-born residents in the US is unauthorized (UN DESA, 2017; Passel & Cohn, 2018).1 Candidate Donald Trump promised to stop the entry of unauthorized foreigners by building a wall on the Mexico-US border and deporting the unauthorized immigrants in the US. After taking office in January 2017, President Trump issued executive orders that ordered planning to build the wall, more agents to detect and deport unauthorized foreigners, and restrictions on the entry of Muslims from countries deemed uncooperative in the fight against terrorism. Congress has rejected many of Trump’s proposals, and the courts have slowed the implemenation of some Trump policies, highlighting the limits of a nationalist and populist approach to managing migration.