WASHINGTON – Immigration remains a top issue in the 2024 presidential election, with both candidates taking tougher stances than in the past on the influx of migrants into the United States.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made immigration a major campaign issue, as he did in his two previous White House bids, and this time he has expanded his attacks to include false claims about migrants having legal status in specific locations, such as Springfield, Ohio .
He has frequently demonized immigrants in speeches and rallies and has vowed to carry out mass deportations 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, favoring restrictions on asylum and advocating for greater border security because the number of migrant encounters reached a record high at the end of 2023. After these fresh rules are introduced migrant encounters have dropped sharply this year.
In her remarks on immigration, Vice President Harris essentially stuck to her promise to sign a bipartisan agreement on border security that the three senators struck earlier this year. This legislation, if passed, would be the most drastic change to US immigration law in decades.
Agreement it never made it out of the Senate. When Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with the bill, House Republicans withdrew their support, and the Upper House GOP followed suit.
Harris has not detailed her position on immigration beyond her support for the Border Security Act.
Regardless of who wins the White House, the incoming 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 legal challenge in Texas threatens the legality of the program, and the case could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Additionally, work visas, the massive backlog in U.S. immigration courts, and the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will become the responsibility of the next administration. Neither candidate has specified how they would handle these issues.
The Trump campaign did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Harris’ campaign took notice of the vice president’s remarks from a campaign rally in Arizona where she admitted that the US immigration system is broken and expressed her support for border security and legal paths to citizenship.
Harris also took September departure to the southern border.
The promise: an agreement on border security
Harris has made the bilateral border agreement a centerpiece of her campaign. She often promised to sign this bill and used this offer to criticize Trump.
“We can create a path to citizenship and secure our borders,” Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August.
For a bill negotiated by senators to pass the chamber, it would need to reach the 60-vote threshold. But when Trump opposed the bill and it was put to a vote, the Republican leading negotiations with Democrats and the White House, James Lankford of Oklahoma, voted against his own bill.
Additionally, House Democrats from the Congressional Latino Caucus and immigration groups did not support the bill.
“I will reintroduce the bipartisan border security bill that he murdered and sign it into law,” Harris said at the DNC.
The measure raises the bar on asylum and would require asylum seekers to provide more effective evidence of their fear of persecution.
The bill would also provide $20 billion to hire more than 4,000 asylum officers, legal counsel for unaccompanied minors and purchase technology to screen for drugs at ports of entry. Providing 50,000 detention beds would also provide $8 billion.
The plan did provide some legal paths to citizenship for Afghans who helped the United States and fled in 2021 after the United States withdrew from the country. It also provided up to 10,000 special visas to family members of Afghan allies.
It would also add 250,000 green work cards and family visas over the next five years.
The promise: mass deportations
“Send them back,” is the chant at Trump’s rallies, where he often promises to carry out mass deportations.
There are approximately 11 million people in the US without legal permission.
“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 deportations would be a broad, multi-pronged effort that included invoking 18th-century law; law enforcement reshuffles in federal agencies; transferring funds through programs within the Department of Homeland Security; and forcing better immigration enforcement.
The promise: the end of birthright citizenship
In a May 2023 campaign videoTrump said if he wins the White House, one of his first acts will be to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship, meaning anyone born in the US, regardless of parental status, is an American citizen.
This is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and likely involves legal challenges.
“As part of my plan to secure the border, on the first day of my new term, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that, if the law is correctly interpreted, in the future, future children of illegal aliens will not be granted automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump said.
Promise: deportation of pro-Palestinian students on visas
Last year across the country, students on college campuses set up camps and protested, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the first attack, which took place on October 7, 2023, more than 1,200 people were killed in Israel and hundreds were taken hostage. As the war went on, researchers estimate that as many as 186,000 Palestinians died.
At a private dinner in May, Trump told donors that “any student who protests, I 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 that, they’ll start behaving.”
Trump also took this oath during a campaign rally in October 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We will block the visas of all Hamas sympathizers, we will take them from our university campuses, from our cities and we will take them the hell out of our country if you don’t like it,” he said.
The Republican Party managed to do this part of his party program in July.
The promise: an end to parole programs
With immigration reform stalled in Congress, one way the Biden administration has tackled mass migration is through the apply of humane parole programs. These humanitarian parole programs have been used for Ukrainians fleeing war with Russia, Afghans fleeing after the United States withdrew, and Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.
Over 1 million people were paroled to the United States under executive authority extended by the Biden administration.
Trump said in a November 2023 campaign video will end this policy on his first day in office.
“I will stop the outrageous abuse of parole,” Trump said.
The promise: green cards for international students
In a June podcast interviewTrump has said he supports granting green cards to foreign students who graduate from an American university.
“In my opinion, if you graduate from college, you should automatically receive a green card as part of your diploma to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said. “This also applies to junior high schools.”
This will be done through rulemaking by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On the podcast, Trump also said he would extend H-1B visas for tech workers. These visas enable employers to employ foreign workers in specialized occupations, usually requiring high qualifications.
The promise: more immigration controls
On social mediaTrump’s campaign announced that it would introduce “ideological control” of all immigrants and exclude those who sympathize with Hamas.
The promise: Trump-era immigration policy
Trump has stated in various campaign speeches that he plans to restore the immigration policies of his first term.
This would mean continuing construction of the wall along the southern border; re-issuing a travel ban on people from majority-Muslim countries; suspension of refugee travel; restoring public health policies that prohibit migrants from seeking asylum amid the coronavirus pandemic; and restoring the Remain in Mexico policy, which required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting their cases.
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