- Analysis by Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
- Courtesy: CNN
President Trump is back in power, and the priorities of his long-promised immigration crackdown are clear.
His executive orders signed this week outline a sweeping agenda, from declaring an invasion at the border to ending birthright citizenship.
But significant questions remain about what’s next.
Here are some major issues to watch:
- Will Trump’s birthright citizenship ban survive court challenges? And could it expand?
Trump issued an executive order declaring that babies born to undocumented immigrants, or to parents who are in the US legally on temporary visas, are not US citizens. The new policy applies to babies born after February 19, and prevents the federal government from issuing them documents like passports or Social Security cards. The order is already facing numerous legal challenges from pregnant mothers, advocacy organizations and state attorneys general arguing it violates the Constitution and longstanding legal precedent. And a federal judge in Seattle has issued an order temporarily blocking it. Ultimately, the Supreme Court could have the final say.
Why it matters: If implemented, this would be a seismic shift redefining who is American more than 150 years after the 14th Amendment enshrined birthright citizenship in the Constitution.
And as CNN senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic noted this week, “a new conservative supermajority has given Trump supporters hope that it might eventually reverse yet another precedent.”
If the case does end up on the Supreme Court’s docket, it isn’t clear how the justices would rule, according to Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
“We don’t know what the Supreme Court is going to say,” Chishti told reporters this week. “We must be clear, the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on kids born to two unauthorized people.”
But so far, Biskupic noted, justices haven’t signaled any desire to revisit the 1898 milestone Supreme Court case that’s long guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the US.
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute, says he has little doubt that Trump administration officials will expand their efforts to end birthright citizenship if given the chance. Trump’s executive order “purports to limit the damage by applying it only to future children,” Bier wrote in a post on X, “but if they can get away with this blatantly unconstitutional action, they can strip anyone of their citizenship. The 14th amendment would be dead.”
Keep in mind: This executive order wouldn’t just affect the children of undocumented immigrants. Children of people in the US legally on temporary work or student visas are also included. And if implemented more broadly down the line, the ban would affect millions of people.
- What role will the military play in Trump’s immigration crackdown?
Thousands of additional active-duty troops are being ordered to the US southern border. And that, officials say, is just the beginning. Trump issued an executive order stating he will decide within 90 days whether to invoke the Insurrection Act at the border. That would allow him to use active-duty troops domestically for law enforcement. Officials have also started using military aircraft for deportation flights.
Why it matters: A law that dates back more than a century – known as “posse comitatus” – bars active-duty US troops from domestic law enforcement without authorization. That’s one reason why in recent years, military help at the border has been limited to more passive forms of assistance, such as surveillance and transportation.
“What’s being talked about now…is a different form of military assistance, and it’s a real escalation,” says Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service who now directs the US immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute. “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the Defense Department, but where the career military has been concerned, over time, they have strongly, strongly resisted being asked to play roles such as those that are now being contemplated.”
Keep in mind: We’ve seen troops sent to the border numerous times in the past, including in the Bush and Obama administrations. But they haven’t been involved in arrests.
- Will Mexico bend to Trump’s will or push back?
Both Mexico and the US have new presidents, and we haven’t seen yet how well they’ll work together. Mexico could be impacted significantly by a number of Trump’s executive orders, including his plan to designate cartels as terrorist organizations and the return of the program that sends migrants back across the border for the duration of their immigration cases. Mexican leaders in recent years have bristled at Trump’s comments disparaging immigrants and his handling of the border. So far, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has vowed to protect her nation’s sovereignty while seeking a collaborative relationship with the US.
Why it matters: When it comes to cracking down on illegal immigration, the US often relies on help from Mexico.
“Some of the other things that the president is talking about could really hamper that,” Meissner told reporters this week, “like the issue of tariffs on Mexico … (and) renaming the Gulf of Mexico.”
Keep in mind: Mexico isn’t the only country the US has been relying on to help with immigration issues. Another important country to watch, according to Meissner, is Panama, a key pathway for migrants journeying to the US border from South America. Trump’s threats to take control of the Panama Canal have drawn stern rebukes from the Central American country’s president.
- Will the threatened mass deportations reach their promised scale?
Mass deportations were Trump’s signature 2024 campaign issue, and something many of his supporters are expecting to see. His executive orders this week began laying the groundwork for the mass deportations he’d promised, expanding the pool of undocumented immigrants subject to fast-track deportation and pushing for an increase in detention facilities. But there’s one key thing executive orders don’t come with: funding.
Why it matters: Rhetoric about increased deportations has fired up Trump’s base and sent fear rippling through immigrant communities. But experts say the reality of intensifying deportations is costly, and more complicated than a campaign promise.
“It takes enormous resources. There are enormous resources already that are devoted for us as a country toward immigration enforcement,” Meissner says. “This is a significant dialing up. Whether it really will happen or not remains to be seen.”
- How much money would Congress need to provide?
“I’ve been working with members of Congress, and the whole team has been working, to come up with a number that makes sense,” border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash this week. “But like I’ve said many times, we’re going to use whatever money we have and do the most efficient operation we can. The more money we have, the more we can do. And I think this election proves that the American people support the removals of criminal aliens in this country. So I’m looking for Congress to come through and give us the budget we need.”
Keep in mind: The possibility of budget constraints has been on the administration’s radar. Earlier this month, Homan privately told members of Congress to temper their expectations about the upcoming deportation operation, citing limited resources.
- How far will Trump go to punish sanctuary cities, and will local leaders stand their ground?
Trump is threatening to cut funding to sanctuary cities. And a Justice Department memo this week outlined the Trump administration’s plans to challenge so-called “sanctuary city” laws by threatening to prosecute state and local officials who resist the federal immigration crackdown. Meanwhile, 11 state attorneys general released a statement pushing back against what they called “troubling threats to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecutorial authority and resources to attack public servants acting in compliance with their state laws, interfering with their ability to build trust with the communities they serve and protect.”
Why it matters: Many of the largest cities in the country are so-called sanctuary cities, a broad term used to describe municipalities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Tensions between the federal government and sanctuary cities during the first Trump administration weren’t just a matter of political sparring. At the start of his first term, Trump threatened to take federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions in an executive order that was eventually blocked in court. His administration later conditioned some criminal justice-related grants on cooperation with immigration authorities.
But prosecuting local officials would be a major escalation.
Keep in mind: The Trump administration also made another significant policy move this week that threatens spaces where undocumented immigrants once felt protected, rescinding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy that had previously blocked officers from making arrests at churches, hospitals and schools.
“We are worried about the impact that this is going to have on families, on children and, frankly, on law enforcement. We depend a lot on the cooperation of people in the immigrant community to help us solve crimes, to be witnesses in cases, and we are very worried that losing that cooperation is really going to endanger public safety,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez told CNN’s Laura Coates this week.
- Which countries will face travel bans?
An executive order Trump signed this week paved the way for a new spate of travel bans. But we don’t know yet which countries will be impacted. The order directs officials to respond in 60 days with recommendations “identifying countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
Why it matters: At the beginning of the last Trump administration, we saw a ban that blocked travel for 90 days from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The ban spurred protests in airports across the US and numerous legal challenges.
This time, travel bans haven’t been issued – yet. But the executive order laying the groundwork for them could have significant consequences, Chishti says.
It may lead to nationals of certain countries being blocked from entering the United States, Chishti says, or “even potentially being removed from the United States if they are already here.”
- And there could be broader implications, too.
“The Trump administration’s declaration that it wishes to reestablish the level of vetting that existed during its first term serves as a signal to watch for obstacles and delays throughout the legal immigration system,” the American Immigration Council wrote in an analysis of this week’s executive orders.
Keep in mind: Trump’s slew of executive orders this week largely focused on issues around illegal immigration. But this is just Week One. There’s plenty of time for more immigration policy changes to emerge from the Trump White House.
- What will happen to people who came to the US via a Biden program that Trump is ending?
Among the first steps Trump took was an executive order undoing a number of Biden administration policies, including a program that had created a pathway for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the United States.
Why it matters: More than half a million people from those four countries came to the US under this program. Now their futures are uncertain.
Participants in the program were allowed into the country under humanitarian parole, which is granted for a finite time period.
“There is a question whether they will simply allow the current time periods to lapse, or whether they actually will move forward and cancel the humanitarian paroles across the board,” Meissner says.
A Department of Homeland Security memo issued this week suggests authorities may strip parole status on a case by case basis.
Without the program’s protection, participants would lose their work authorization and could find themselves subject to deportation.
Keep in mind: Republican leaders have argued the program was illegal, but the Biden administration credited it with helping relieve pressure at the border by providing a legal pathway into the US. Without it, Meissner says, the number of people trying to cross the border illegally is likely to increase.
- CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Natash Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Oren Liebermann, Katie Bo Lillis, Gerardo Lemos, Michael Rios, Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.