Immigration in Trump’s First 100 Days

Since returning to office in January, President Trump has prioritized a tough-on-border-security agenda, focusing on deterrence, enforcement, and physical and administrative barriers to illegal immigration, resulting in a near-immediate impact on border encounter numbers. With President Trump’s 100^th day in office quickly approaching, CIS reflects on the administration’s most significant achievements so far and what further actions might be expected in the coming months in other areas, such as reforms to legal immigration or asylum.

Ending the Crisis on the Southern Border

Perhaps the Trump administration’s greatest achievement is the impact its policies have had on migrant encounters at the border. As Todd Bensman, CIS’s senior national security fellow, explained, the border crisis that plagued the Biden administration ended nearly immediately after Trump took office because of a “combination of Trump’s restoration of lawful detentions, rapid expulsions, interior deportations, and an end to releases.”

The remarkable part of the administration’s border strategy, however, is that these tools were already provided to the executive branch – in some cases mandated – by the laws Congress passed years ago. More specifically, the administration:

• reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” program (officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP)
• announced an end to the Biden administration’s unlawful parole programs (including CHNV and the CBP One Mobile app, discussed below)
• resumed and expedited construction on the border wall
• increased compliance with mandatory detention laws
• expanded the scope and application of expedited removal
• supported Border Patrol operations by increasing manpower and resources to high-traffic areas, and
• restricted asylum eligibility from aliens who crossed the border illegally,

just to name a few policies.

The administration’s actions and messaging have sent a clear signal that crossing the border illegally is not worth the gamble. Equally important, the administration debunked the myth that the federal government did not already have the tools it needed to reduce border crossings. While legislative changes are sorely needed in some areas – to close loopholes in the asylum system, for instance, and to reduce incentives for parents to send children with smugglers unaccompanied to the United States illegally – it appears that the most important ingredient to end the border crisis was political will. 

The numbers speak for themselves. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 106,321 total encounters in October 2024, or about 3,544 per day, at the Southwest border. By the time Trump took office in January 2025, the agency reported a significant decrease in monthly crossings to 61,448, about 2,048 per day. And in February, Trump’s first full month in office, the number fell to an almost incredible 11,709 encounters, about 418 per day, of which fewer that 300 a day were Border Patrol apprehensions (the rest were inadmissibles at ports of entry). 

While February marked “the lowest month in recorded history” for Border Patrol apprehensions, according to Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks, March’s numbers have maintained this trend. For March 2025, CBP reported just 11,017 total encounters at the Southwest border, a rate of about 378 per day, with Border Patrol apprehensions specifically averaging only about 232 a day. As Andrew Arthur, a CIS resident fellow in law and policy, noted, “You have to go back to FY 1968 to find a year in which there were fewer than 100,000 Southwest border apprehensions, and even then, it was close — 96,641. In other words, the Southwest border is more secure today than it has been since at least the Johnson administration.”

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Passage of the Laken Riley Act

The first bill signed by President Trump in his second term was the Laken Riley Act, named after a young nursing student in Georgia murdered by a Venezuelan who entered illegally and was released into the United States by the Biden administration. He was subsequently arrested at least twice, once in New York for endangering his five-year-old son, and again in Georgia for shoplifting. Under Biden administration policies, ICE failed to detain him either time.

The new law expands mandated detention for criminal aliens to include those involved in “burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer”. More importantly, the law grants states standing to sue the federal government to comply with the Immigration and Nationality Act’s detention mandates if the federal failure to comply harms the state or its residents, “including financial harm in excess of $100.” This will make it much more difficult for a future open-borders administration to get away with mass releases, via parole or any other means, of aliens whose detention is mandated by Congress.

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Ending Biden’s Unauthorized Parole Programs

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14165, directing DHS to end the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) parole program. Ending CHNV was an important first step to bringing DHS’s policies in line with federal law and allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to regain focus on the immigration system set forth by Congress, which it is directed by Congress to administer. 

The CHNV program allowed over 530,000 inadmissible nationals of these countries to enter under a historically – and likely unlawfully – expansive and abusive interpretation of the parole statute and obtain work authorization for up to two years. Aliens with work authorization obtain Social Security numbers and can apply for drivers licenses. Although the prior administration referred to CHNV Parole (and other parole programs it created since 2021) as a “lawful pathway” for migrants to enter the United States, none of its beneficiaries were admissible to the United States by definition or obtained a lawful immigration status or visa by virtue of the grant of parole (i.e., authorized entry). 

DHS paused the program in the summer of 2024 after an internal audit revealed high levels of fraud. The audit found that just 3,200 U.S.-based sponsors pledged support for over 100,000 applicants. The Biden administration restarted the program in August 2024.

On April 14, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction staying the termination of CHNV, temporarily stopping DHS from revoking parole from the program’s beneficiaries. USCIS indicated, however, that it would not be processing new requests for CHNV parole while the case is considered on the merits. 

The Trump administration also terminated the use of the CBP One app, which had enabled intending illegal migrants to schedule their arrivals at U.S. ports of entry to apply for parole into the country. Approximately 30,000 appointments were canceled following this decision. The administration justified the move by emphasizing that the app facilitated illegal immigration to the United States and undermined the lawful immigration system. 

DHS quickly repurposed the CBP One app to facilitate voluntary departures for removable aliens already in the United States. Under the new system, unlawfully present aliens or those aliens whose parole has been revoked can use CBP One – now called CBP Home – to request and arrange their return to their home countries without undergoing formal deportation proceedings. DHS officials stated that the change was designed to streamline the voluntary departure process, reduce the burden on immigration courts, and prioritize enforcement resources for removable aliens who present security or flight risks.

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Rolling Back Temporary Protected Status Designations

For the first time since the first Trump administration, the Secretary of Homeland Security took steps to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for countries whose conditions either no longer qualify for the status or whose designations are no longer in the “national interest,” as is required by statute, or both. Since January, DHS Secretary Noem has issued orders to wind down or terminate TPS for Venezuela and Haiti, and the Trump administration has more recently indicated that it plans to take similar actions to terminate TPS for Afghanistan and Cameroon.

TPS, like its name suggests, was created as a temporary form of relief for aliens in the United States when an ongoing armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” make it unable for them to return safely to their home country. Multiple administrations, however, have abused the program by allowing designations to continue even after conditions in such countries no longer meet the statutory criteria. 

TPS provides aliens with protection from deportation and work authorization eligibility, which then provides covered aliens the ability to obtain Social Security numbers and drivers licenses. TPS designations may only be granted for up to 18 months but can be extended or terminated following a Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination on whether conditions continue to exist that warrant a TPS designation. While any national of a designated country can apply for TPS, the program only benefits aliens who are in the United States illegally or are soon to fall out of a lawful immigration status. 

Secretary Noem’s actions mark an important shift in policy because the Biden administration, in just four years, increased the TPS population to historic numbers (exceeding 1.2 million aliens, by conservative estimates) by designating five new countries for TPS and extending or “redesignating” every other existing TPS designation. 

A “redesignation” allows DHS to change the cutoff date for TPS to allow aliens who arrived in the United States illegally after the country’s last designation to become eligible for the relief from removal – directly in violation of congressional intent. Congress limited eligibility to prevent the program from turning into its own pull factor for illegal immigration into the country. At the time Biden took office, only about 400,000 aliens had TPS.

Open-borders groups have already begun challenging Noem’s TPS designation terminations in federal court. The first Trump administration tried to end TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan, but was blocked by a Ninth Circuit district court judge. As a result, nationals from these countries were able to maintain their TPS during litigation and into the Biden administration.

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Expanding Enforcement of the Registration Law

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14159, which includes provisions requiring aliens, including those in the country illegally, to comply with a decades-old law and register their presence in the United States with the federal government. Specifically, the EO directed DHS (along with the Department of State and Department of Justice) to (1) announce and publicize information about the legal obligation of all previously unregistered aliens in the United States to comply with the requirements 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306; (2) ensure that all previously unregistered aliens in the United States comply with 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306; and (3) ensure that failure to comply with the legal obligations of 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306 is treated as a civil and criminal enforcement priority. 

Under these laws, “every alien … in the United States” is required “to apply for the registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of thirty days following the alien’s entry or prior to the expiration of thirty days following the attainment of his fourteenth birthday….” All registered aliens must also “at all times” carry proof of registration and present it upon demand. Moreover, “any alien who fails to comply with [the possession requirement] shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,” and shall be fined, imprisoned, or both. And they must notify DHS in writing of each change of address.

DHS is implementing this order by creating a new website and form to allow aliens who are not in compliance to register with the government. Because most aliens who arrive to the United States legally are already complying with these laws, the policy should be understood as expanding enforcement of this law to those living in the United States illegally. The policy states that failure to comply may result in fines up to $5,000 or imprisonment for up to six months.

Despite much of the political commentary surrounding this order, enforcement of the registration laws is not without modern precedent. Former President George W. Bush expanded enforcement of the registration requirements following the attacks on September 11, 2001, by introducing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). 

NSEERS required male aliens, ages 16-45, from designated countries to register with immigration authorities, submit fingerprints and photographs, report changes of addresses, and only depart the country through designated ports of entry. As a result of this program, 80,000 people complied with the registration law and 13,000 were placed in deportation proceedings, and an estimated 15,000 aliens from Pakistan, one of the designated countries, left on their own – i.e., self-deported. The program was suspended in 2011, but not formally dismantled until late 2016 by the Obama administration. 

The Obama administration replaced NSEERS with the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US Visit) program. This tool, however, was only used at ports of entry, and therefore did not impact many aliens who entered and were residing in the United States illegally. 

Enforcement of the registration law has been challenged by several open-borders groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and United Farm Workers of America. On April 10, 2025, however, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the Trump administration could proceed with the online registry. He stated that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and had not demonstrated concrete harm. The judge emphasized that most aliens are already expected to register under existing laws.​

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Reducing the Immigration Court Backlog for the First Time in Years

Another achievement that should not be overlooked is the Trump administration’s success in reducing the immigration court backlog. Earlier this month, the Washington Times reported that the number of removal cases pending before the immigration courts has dropped by 115,000 since Trump took office for the second time. 

The Times reported that the number of new cases filed by DHS with the courts averaged more than 100,000 per month during the last nine months of 2024 “as illegal immigrants streamed into the U.S.” But as Andrew Arthur explained, “In February and March, respectively, DHS added fewer than 30,000 new cases to the immigration courts’ dockets, while immigration judges completed more than 60,000 cases in each of those months.”

Arthur added that, “The decline in the backlog means aliens in immigration courts will have their cases heard more quickly, which in turn means those who merit relief and protection will receive it more quickly — and that aliens with non-meritorious and fraudulent claims will be ordered removed more expeditiously, too.” While most recently added cases are still scheduled with the courts years into the future, the quick reduction of cases on the courts’ dockets after just three months of stronger enforcement policies promises that the immigration system may function as Congress intended sooner than expected. 

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Utilizing the Alien Enemies Act

In 1798, our new nation prepared for a feared French invasion by enacting the Alien Enemies Act, which remains the law of the land. The AEA grants the president the power to summarily detain and remove any or all noncitizen nationals of an enemy nation (age 14 or older). The federal government has utilized the AEA during the War of 1812 and the First and Second World Wars. 

The Supreme Court concluded following WWII that “full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it — on the President”. However, the president must meet the AEA’s statutory prerequisites — there being a declared war or “invasion or predatory incursion … against [U.S.] territory” by the foreign nation or government. 

Thus, the AEA cannot be used as a generalized tool for mass deportation. However, CIS senior legal fellow George Fishman has contended that a powerful argument can be made that in some circumstances transnational criminal organizations’ nefarious acts can be considered those of a foreign government, based on Moisés Naím’s analysis of the rise of “mafia states” – nations whose “governments have … taken over the[] illegal operations” of organized crime, “blurring the conceptual line between states and nonstate actors”. In such instances, a president could utilize the AEA against members of these criminal groups, or, more broadly, any nationals of the enemy nation. President Trump is making a similar argument in the context of the vicious criminal cartel (and designated foreign terrorist organization) Tren de Aragua and the government of Venezuela, contending that TdA “is closely aligned with” and “has infiltrated” the Maduro regime, which has “ceded ever-greater control over [Venezuela’s] territories” to TdA, resulting in “a hybrid criminal state”. TdA is “conducting irregular warfare” against the U.S., “both directly and at the direction … of the Maduro regime”. Consequently, President Trump proclaimed that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA … and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the [U.S.] are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” Ultimately, the Supreme Court will need to bless this novel use of the AEA.

The Supreme Court recently reiterated its 1948 ruling that aliens subject to removal under the AEA are entitled to judicial review regarding “questions of [its] interpretation and constitutionality” and whether they are indeed alien enemies. Thus, they “must receive notice … that they are subject to removal”, “as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief … before such removal occurs”. And even more recently, the Court directed DHS “not to remove any member of [a] putative class of detainees [in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, or will be subject to President Trump’s TdA proclamation] from the [U.S.] until further order of this Court.” Andrew Arthur believes that the Court is now “waiting for a [lower] court … to rule on whether the Trump administration has the power to remove alleged TdA members under the ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ clause of the AEA.”

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More on the Way?

Despite the administration’s clear successes, there is still a lot of work to be done. First, the Trump administration should repeal and replace the public charge regulation that the Biden administration finalized in 2022. 

This rule allows aliens who are subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility to nevertheless receive costly forms of welfare without immigration consequences – so long as the government determines that an alien is not “primarily dependent” on such welfare, a standard that does not exist in the public charge law. Moreover, this Biden-era policy prohibits immigration officers from looking at any non-cash benefit an alien receives at taxpayer expense or any public benefits received by their dependents when assessing whether the public charge ground of inadmissibility applies. 

Second, the Trump administration will also have an opportunity to make long-lasting reforms to the government’s asylum policies. If not through legislation, DHS and DOJ could revive regulatory proposals from President Trump’s first term that sought to clarify what types of fear claims are viable and ensure that agency resources are primarily devoted to claims with a high likelihood of success in the immigration courts. Possible reforms could include streamlining the credible fear process, defining what constitutes a “particular social group” for purposes of asylum eligibility, and clarifying what types of actions constitute “persecution on account of a protected ground.” 

Moreover, the Trump administration is likely to continue to leverage international partnerships to distribute the humanitarian burden to countries other than the United States and Mexico. Expanding what are known as “asylum cooperative” and “safe third country” agreements could save taxpayer resources, deter illegal immigration, discourage the submission of fraudulent or frivolous claims, and reduce “forum shopping” for asylum.

Third, the public should also expect this Trump administration to act on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue, but the administration has thus far been holding its cards close to its chest with regards to how it plans to manage the partially-enjoined program. While President Trump indicated multiple occasions on the campaign trail that he would consider legalizing the DACA population as a part of a deal to restructure the immigration system as a whole, litigation challenging the program has bounced around the federal court system and could make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court this year for a final disposition.

Finally, the Trump administration will likely take actions to reform guestworker programs. These programs, which are sold to the public as means to fill legitimate gaps in the domestic labor market, often instead result in the suppression of wages and the replacement of U.S. workers from local jobs. Regulatory reforms, such as increasing the wage levels that employers are required to pay foreign workers and prohibiting known outsourcing companies from accessing capped guestworker visas, would benefit both U.S. workers and foreign workers alike. Most ripe for reform or elimination is the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, a large guestworker program not authorized by Congress, which actually subsidizes the employment of recently graduated foreign students through exemption from payroll taxes.