This is one in a series of reports from States Newsroom on the key policy issues in the presidential campaign.
WASHINGTON — Immigration remains at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election as both candidates take a tougher stance than in the past on the influx of migrants into the United States.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made immigration a central campaign issue, as he did in his two previous runs for the White House, and has broadened his attacks this time to include false claims about migrants with legal status in certain places like Springfield , Ohio.
In speeches and at rallies, he has often demonized immigrants and vowed to carry out the mass deportation of millions of people living in the United States without authorization.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, like the Biden administration, has moved to the right on immigration, enacting asylum restrictions and pushing for greater border security as migrant encounters hit a record high in late 2023. With these new guidelines, encounters with migrants have fallen sharply this year.
In her remarks on immigration, Vice President Harris largely stuck to her promise to sign a bipartisan border security agreement that three senators reached earlier this year. Had this law been enacted, it would have been the most drastic change in U.S. immigration law in decades.
The deal never made it out of the Senate. After Trump expressed his displeasure with the bill, House Republicans withdrew their support, and the GOP in the upper chamber followed suit.
Harris has not elaborated on her positions on immigration beyond her support of the border security bill.
Regardless of who wins the White House, the new administration will be tasked with the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects just over half a million undocumented people brought to the United States as children without authorization . A court challenge in Texas threatens the program's legality and the case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Additionally, work visas, massive backlogs in U.S. immigration courts, and the renewal of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) fall to the next administration. Neither candidate has outlined how they would address these issues.
The Trump campaign did not respond to States Newsroom's request for comment.
The Harris campaign pointed to the vice president's comments at a campaign rally in Arizona, where she acknowledged that the U.S. has a broken immigration system and expressed support for border security and legal pathways to citizenship.
Harris also took a trip to the southern border in September.
Promise: border security agreement
Harris has made the bipartisan border agreement a centerpiece of her campaign. She has often promised to enact it and has used the proposal to criticize Trump.
“We can create an earned path to citizenship and secure our border,” Harris said during the Democratic National Convention in August.
The bill negotiated by senators would have to reach the 60-vote threshold to get through the chamber. But after Trump spoke out against it and the proposal was brought up, Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, who led negotiations with Democrats and the White House, voted against his own bill.
Additionally, House Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and immigration groups did not support the bill.
“I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed and sign it into law,” Harris said at the DNC.
The measure raises the bar for asylum and would require asylum seekers to provide more evidence of their fear of persecution.
The bill would also have allocated $20 billion to hire more than 4,000 asylum officers, provide legal services to unaccompanied minors and purchase drug screening technology at ports of entry. It would also have provided $8 billion for detention centers to add 50,000 detention beds.
The plan provided some legal paths to citizenship for Afghans who supported the US and fled the country in 2021 after the US withdrawal. In addition, up to 10,000 special visas were issued for family members of these Afghan allies.
In addition, 250,000 green card visas for employees and families would have been added over the next five years.
Promise: mass deportations
“Send them back” is chanted at Trump’s rallies, where he often promises to carry out mass deportations.
There are approximately 11 million people living without legal permission in the United States.
“We’re going to have the biggest deportation,” Trump said at a June campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin. “We have no choice.”
Under Trump's vision, mass deportation would be a sweeping, multi-pronged effort that includes invoking an 18th-century law; restructuring federal law enforcement; transfer of funds under Department of Homeland Security programs; and force stronger enforcement of immigration laws.
Promise: an end to firstborn citizenship
In a May 2023 campaign video, Trump said that if he wins the White House, one of his first steps would be to issue an executive order eliminating birthright citizenship, meaning everyone born in the United States is independent from his parents' status American is a citizen.
This is enshrined in the 14th Amendment and is likely to face legal challenges.
“As part of my plan to secure the border, on the first day of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making it clear to federal authorities that, if the law is correctly interpreted, future children will be illegal aliens.” “We will not automatically receive U.S. citizenship,” Trump said.
Promise: deport pro-Palestinian students with visas
Across the country, students on college campuses have set up camps and protested over the past year to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
The first attack on October 7, 2023 killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took hundreds hostage. Researchers estimate that up to 186,000 Palestinians were killed directly and indirectly as the war progressed.
At a private dinner in May, Trump told donors that “any student who protests, I'll throw them out of the country,” according to the Washington Post.
“You know, there are a lot of foreign students,” Trump said. “As soon as they hear this, they will behave.”
Trump also made this vow during a campaign rally in October 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We will revoke the visas of all Hamas sympathizers and expel them from our universities, from our cities and damned well from our country, if you agree to that,” he said.
The Republican Party included it in its party platform in July.
Promise: an end to probation programs
With immigration reform stalled in Congress, the Biden administration has addressed mass migration by, among other things, using humanitarian parole programs. These humanitarian probation programs served Ukrainians fleeing the war with Russia, Afghans fleeing the U.S. withdrawal, and Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.
More than a million people have been paroled into the U.S. as a result of the Biden administration's expanded executive authority.
Trump said in a November 2023 campaign video that he would end these policies on his first day in office.
“I will stop the outrageous abuse of the parole power,” Trump said.
Promise: Green cards for foreign students
In a podcast interview in June, Trump said he supports giving green cards to foreign students when they graduate from a U.S. college.
“What I'm going to do is that when you graduate from college, I think you should automatically get a green card as part of your diploma to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said. “This includes junior colleges.”
This would be done through rulemaking by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On the podcast, Trump also said he would extend H-1B visas for technicians. These visas allow employers to hire foreign workers for specialized occupations, usually for a highly skilled position.
Promise: more screening of immigrants
On social media, Trump's campaign said it would implement “ideological vetting” for all immigrants and exclude those with Hamas sympathies.
Promise: Trump-era immigration policy
Trump has said in various campaign speeches that he plans to restore his immigration policies from his first term.
This also included continuing the construction of the wall along the southern border; New travel ban for people from predominantly Muslim countries; suspension of travel for refugees; reinstating a public health policy that bars migrants from seeking asylum amid the coronavirus pandemic; and reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, which requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their case.
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