Ted Hesson and Alexandra Ulmer
WASHINGTON/PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (Reuters) – Newly sworn-in U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would declare a state of emergency on illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, send troops there and step up deportations of criminals, outlining a crackdown in his inaugural address.
Trump said he would invoke a 1798 war law known as the Alien Enemy Act to target foreign gang members in the US, a legal authority last used to incarcerate non-citizens of Japanese, German and Italian descent in concentration camps. internment during World War II. Trump also said he would designate criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Shortly after the inauguration, US border officials said they had shut down outgoing President Joe Biden’s CBP One legal entry program, which had allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the US legally by making an appointment on the app. Existing appointments have been canceled, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House after promising to beef up border security and deport a record number of migrants. While Trump has criticized Democrat Biden for high levels of illegal immigration during his presidency, arrests of migrants have fallen dramatically after Biden tightened his policy in June and as Mexico stepped up enforcement.
Republicans say the large-scale deportations are necessary after millions of immigrants crossed the country illegally during Biden’s presidency. There were about 11 million immigrants in the US illegally or with temporary status at the start of 2022, according to US government estimates, a number some analysts now put at 13 to 14 million.
“As commander in chief, I have no greater responsibility than to defend our country against threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I will do,” Trump said in his address.
Trump’s critics and immigrant advocates say mass deportations could disrupt businesses, divide families and cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are preparing for possible lawsuits, a strategy that has thwarted many of Trump’s hard-line policies during his first term. California and other Democratic states that have a policy of limiting cooperation with federal immigration officials could also clash with Trump.
Americans have become less welcoming to undocumented immigrants since Trump’s first term in office, but remain wary of harsh measures such as the use of detention camps, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed in December.
BIDEN ENTRY PROGRAM SHUTDOWN
In several Mexican border towns, migrants saw their appointments on Biden’s CBP One app canceled immediately after Trump took office. Approximately 280,000 people logged into the app every day to secure an appointment from January 7.
In Matamoros, Mexico, a group of migrants from the central Mexican state of Zacatecas arrived at a legal border crossing at noon, but border authorities turned them back and said all appointments were now invalid, a Reuters witness was told.
Honduran Denia Mendez, sitting in the courtyard of a migrant shelter in Piedras Negras, Mexico – across from Eagle Pass, Texas – opened her inbox 30 minutes after Trump became president. She stared at the email for several minutes, reading it over and over, before her eyes welled up.
“They canceled my appointment,” she said. A few other migrants, who just minutes ago had been laughing while feeding the pigeons chips, gathered around her phone, their faces suddenly serious.
Mendez’s 15-year-old daughter, Sofia, kept trying to get into the CBP One app.
“They won’t let you into the app, honey,” Mendez told her softly.
TARGETED CITIZENSHIP BY BIRTH
Trump intends to challenge US citizenship for children whose parents were born illegally in the US, a new Trump official said earlier in the day. So-called “birthright citizenship” stems from an amendment to the US Constitution, and any move to limit it is almost certain to trigger legal challenges.
Trump also plans to suspend the U.S. refugee resettlement program for at least four months and will order a security review to see if travelers from certain countries should be subject to the travel ban, the official said.
In his address, Trump said he would restart his first “remain in Mexico” program, which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the outcome of their US cases. Biden ended the program in 2021, saying migrants were left to wait in squalid conditions.
“All illegal entry will be stopped immediately, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places they came from,” Trump said.
The Mexican presidency, foreign ministry and economy ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s plans. At a regular press conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for calm and insisted her government must see the details of Trump’s actions before responding.
