I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigration – Hillary Clinton
Hopping the fence or wading the Rio Grande River isn’t part of America’s immigration process – Ted Nugent
Immigration policy and associated action was the centerpiece of the President’s platform while he campaigned for office. Have his promises and enthusiasm on this subject shown any results? Looking past all the distracting campaign rhetoric and over-the-top reaction from the opposition and mass media, his proposed “new” strategy was easy to digest. Simply limit immigration from countries known to harbor terrorists, require more specific information regarding those applying to immigrate to the US, and increase the physical security of our southern border. Ignoring the anguished hysteria the media has lavished on this topic and looking only at the numerical results, far more has been accomplished in 2017 than is generally known.
The President acted almost immediately on the first two elements of his policy by way of an Executive Order (known as EO1) naming the countries harboring known terrorists and defining a plan for obtaining more security-related information about people from these countries as a condition of entry to the US. EO1 was the subject of legal challenges and protests which led to a revised version, EO2, which addressed most of the legal and logistical complaints of EO1. Despite additional and highly-publicized legal challenges to EO2, the Order did in fact go into effect in June of 2017 and ran its full 120-day course as called for in the Order. All remaining legal challenges to EO2 were effectively eliminated in October of 2017 when the Supreme Court rendered those cases “moot” 1 after the EO2 timeline and its stated tasks were completed.
EO2 stated that upon completion of the specified time intervals for establishing new “vetting” procedures (90 days for non-refugees and 120 days for refugees), these procedures would be carried into implementation by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. That transition occurred in October and November of 2017. The transition itself was erroneously referred to as a new “EO3” by much of the media even though it was specifically written into both the original EO1 & EO2. Again, despite immediate challenges from lower courts, the Supreme Court reversed temporary injunctions to “EO3” while waiting for the court cases to be heard. In the process, the Supreme Court signaled strongly to the lower courts that the Administration would prevail in each case.
Illegal immigrants – Under the new Administration, ICE2 has arrested 40% more “criminal” illegal immigrants – convicts, fugitives, repetitive deportees – in the first 8 months of 2017 than the previous Administration had in the same period in 2016. Further, the number of arrests at the border by the Border Patrol has dropped precipitously to the lowest level in 46 years (a 25% decrease). The reduction in border arrests is directly due to the deterrent effect of the policies of the new Administration as far fewer people are attempting to cross the border illegally.3
Refugees – In fiscal year 2016 under the Obama Administration, 84,995 refugees were admitted and resettled into the United States. The Obama Administration’s goal for FY2017 was to increase that number to 110,000. When President Trump took office, he promised to lower the FY17 refugee admission cap to less than half of what was proposed by the Obama Administration. Despite the fact that over 30,000 refugees had already been admitted in the beginning of FY17 by the Obama Administration, President Trump managed to end FY17 with a grand total of 53,716 refugee admissions, only slightly exceeding his stated goal of 50,000. For the first two months of FY18, the Trump Administration has admitted 3,108 refugees – a pace that would result in less than 20,000 for all of FY18. By any measure, this is a dramatic drop and well under the current Administration’s new proposed 2017 “cap” of 45,000 refugees.
Success? – There were a few immigration-related promises made during the campaign by President Trump which have not yet come to fruition. Namely, construction of a larger border wall and elimination of “sanctuary” policies currently implemented in certain US cities. Some progress has been made on both fronts and these objectives are still being aggressively pursued. However, there is no denying the impressive numbers just cited. These show a massive reduction of refugee admissions and border arrests as well as a significant increase in arrests of criminal illegal immigrants.
The news media’s coverage of this topic has focused almost entirely on just two aspects – the attempts by Federal judges to block the President’s Executive Orders on immigration, and the resistance shown by mayors of self-declared “sanctuary” cities. While these newsworthy events were attended by much drama, and gave rise to the popular (and completely inaccurate) phrase “travel ban”, they had no lasting effect and did not impact the overall outcome of the Trump Administration’s stated policy goals. The numbers don’t lie. Very few news outlets have presented the comprehensive picture of what has actually occurred with respect to immigration under the new Administration in 2017.
2018 should be a very interesting year on the immigration front. There is legislation in the works to address funding for the border wall and also for placing limits on the actions of sanctuary cities. The advancement of this legislation may have to wait for Tax reform, Healthcare, and budget priorities to run their course, but the Administration’s commitment to immigration issues won’t go away. There has been a remarkable change in immigration to the US in 2017. For some, it still may not be enough, but there is no doubt of the current trajectory.
1 The Supreme Court ruled Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project moot after the 90-day period of EO2 was completed in September 2017. The following month, they ruled Hawaii v. Trump moot as well since the 120-day period of EO2 also ran to completion. “Moot” in the legal sense means the case is no longer relevant and is removed from the court docket. Additionally, the Supreme Court also “vacated” these lower court rulings, eliminating the ability to use them as legal precedent.
2 Immigration and Customs Enforcement
3 Additional statistics covering the actual number of border arrests and “removals”, as well as interior arrests of illegal immigrants can be found on this page of the ICE website https://www.ice.gov/removal-statistics/2017.
2 Responses
Well put together. This is a great synopsis of the positive progress made this year. My only concern with the trajectory is that everything listed is easily reversible when his term has ended. We see frequently these days the reference to bilging water out of the boat without patching the hole it leaked in from. Trump is doing great things on immigration for sure, but he has at the best 7 more years. After that what happens to his policies if not edified in law? We need hard and permanent solutions to this problem.
The most obvious permanent solution is a real, complete, physical wall. This is where people like me find the most concern with Trump’s track record. I feel he is wasting his public support on the tired out issues like tax reform and Obongocare repeal, neither of which was a hotbed issue for the vast majority of his voters. The people chanted for a wall first and foremost. A wall is the most permanent way possible to stop the hordes of Jose Zarates from ever invading our land again. A wall is necessary for him to achieve a second term.
Trump has made incredible progress that would not have taken place had the shrew won, but I hate to see him stop short on the 5 yard line when he has the opportunity to really take it all the way down. We need at the very least, a 50 year immigration moratorium, followed by a strict merit based immigration program. Couple this will a full repeal of DACA and subsequent deportations. I realize none of this is likely to happen. It’s just sad that if you went to bed one night in the 50’s right in the center of the American political spectrum you would wake up in 2017 the most hardcore right wing SOB in the country.
I suppose all we can do is wait and have faith. It cannot be an easy task to turn around 50 plus years worth of harmful national policy. Glad y’all are here to document the progress though! By the way, take a look at your email.
You are absolutely right about codifying some of these efforts in law. As an example, in 2017 we witnessed many of Obama’s 8 years worth of “accomplishments” overturned almost immediately because they were the result of fragile Executive Orders and/or Proclamations. While President Trump and the GOP House might support legislation for the things you mention, the current makeup of the Senate would not. A lot of the “problem” senators on the republican side are up for re-election in 2020 along with Trump, and their constituents will need the fortitude to replace them.
The border wall will need money, and the really big battle over the budget still hasn’t occurred. It keeps getting kicked down the road with CR’s so as not to interfere with other legislative goals (repealing ObamaCare and Tax reform have delayed it thus far). That could change as early as next week – although that’s what I wrongly predicted just before the vote on repealing/replacing ObamaCare! I hope there are no more CR’s after the 22nd of this month when the current one expires.
A sad but true hypothetical about to going to bed in the 1950’s and waking up in 2017. Although that 50’s person would be so blown away by other stuff that’s happened (twitter, climate change, 27 ways to state your gender, etc.), his political classification would be the least of his worries.