Trump launches sweeping border crackdown

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday kicked off his sweeping immigration crackdown, tasking the US military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on US soil.

He also pardoned about 1,500 of his supporters who attacked the US Capitol four years ago as he moved swiftly to impose his will on the US government just hours after reclaiming the presidency on Monday.

After a day of ceremony, Trump signed a series of executive actions to curb immigration and roll back environmental regulations and racial and gender diversity initiatives. He did not take immediate action to raise tariffs, a key campaign promise, but said he could impose 25% duties on Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1.

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He signed an executive order on the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization, saying the global health agency had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

On the border crackdown, Trump tasked the US military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum, and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on US soil.

Declaring illegal immigration a national emergency, Trump ordered the Pentagon to provide support for border wall construction, detention space, and migrant transportation, and empowered the secretary of Defense to send troops to the border as needed.

Trump called for his administration to reinstate his “remain in Mexico” program, which forced non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their US cases.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration on Monday, US border authorities said they had shut down outgoing President Joe Biden’s CBP One entry program, which had allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the US legally by scheduling an appointment on an app. Existing appointment were canceled, leaving migrants stunned and unsure of what to do.

Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House after promising to intensify border security and deport record numbers of migrants. Trump criticized Biden for high levels of illegal immigration during the Democrat’s presidency, but as Biden toughened his policies last year and Mexico stepped up enforcement, the number of migrants caught crossing illegally fell dramatically.

Republicans say large-scale deportations are necessary after millions of immigrants crossed illegally during Biden’s presidency. There were roughly 11 million immigrants in the US illegally or with a temporary status at the start of 2022, according to a US government estimate, a figure that some analysts now place at 13 million to 14 million.

“As commander-in-chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” Trump said in his inaugural address.

Trump’s critics and immigrant advocates say mass deportations could disrupt businesses, split families and cost US taxpayers billions of dollars.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal court filing on Monday that Trump’s decision to end the CBP One program removed the only avenue to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, an opening salvo by the civil rights group to fight Trump’s agenda in court.

Americans have grown less welcoming toward immigrants without legal status since Trump’s first presidency, but remain wary of harsh measures such as using detention camps, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in December found.

In several Mexican border cities, migrants saw their appointments on Biden’s CBP One app canceled just after Trump took office. Some 280,000 people had been logging into the app daily to secure an appointment as of Jan. 7.

Migrants waiting in Ciudad Juarez scrambled to find short-term rentals, buy bus tickets and call family members back home.

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

In his order focused on so-called “birthright citizenship,” Trump called on U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of US-born children without at least one US citizen or permanent resident parent, applying the restrictions in 30 days.

His order prompted the swift filing of a lawsuit in federal court in New Hampshire by the ACLU and other groups, who argued that Trump’s order violated the right for anyone born in the United States to be considered a citizen enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“Denying citizenship to US-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, said in a statement.

In other orders, Trump suspended US refugee resettlement for at least three months and ordered a review of security to see if travelers from certain nations should be subject to a travel ban.

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The Republican president rolled back existing guidance for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers that prioritized serious criminals and broadened the scope of their enforcement, including targeting migrants with final deportation orders, a move that could help ramp up removals.

The nascent Trump administration took steps to gain control of the US Justice Department immigration courts, firing four top immigration court officials, three sources familiar with the matter said.

Trump also kicked off a process to designate criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and to utilize a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act against foreign gang members.

PARDON

Trump’s decision to pardon supporters who attacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is sure to enrage police, lawmakers and others whose lives were put at risk during an unprecedented episode in modern US history.

Roughly 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack, with some sprayed with chemical irritants and others struck with pipes, poles and other weapons. Four people died during the chaos, including a Trump supporter who was shot dead by police.

Trump ordered 14 leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militant groups, who were serving long prison sentences, released from prison early, but left their convictions intact.

Earlier in the day, Trump, 78, took the oath of office in the Capitol Rotunda, where a mob of his supporters had rampaged on Jan. 6 in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

At the ceremony, Trump portrayed himself as a savior chosen by God to rescue a faltering nation. His inauguration amounts to a triumphant return for a political disruptor who survived two assassination attempts and won election despite a criminal conviction and a prosecution stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.

Trump is the first president in more than a century to win a second term after losing the White House and the first felon to occupy the White House. The oldest president ever to be sworn in, he is backed by Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Trump once again withdrew the United States from the Paris climate deal, removing the world’s biggest historic emitter from global efforts to fight climate change for the second time in a decade.

“We’re getting rid of all the cancer … caused by the Biden administration,” Trump said as he signed a stack of executive orders in the Oval Office.

Other orders revoked Biden administration policies governing artificial intelligence and electric vehicles. He also imposed a freeze on federal hiring and ordered government workers to return to the office, rather than working from home. He also signed paperwork to create a “Department of Government Efficiency,” an outside advisory board headed by billionaire Elon Musk that aims to cut large swaths of government spending.

In the State Department, more than a dozen nonpartisan senior diplomats were asked to resign as part of a broader plan to replace nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists.

Trump said on social media his team was in the process of removing over a thousand appointees from the Biden administration.

He also said he would issue orders to scrap federal diversity programs and require the government to recognize only genders assigned at birth.

While Trump sought to portray himself as a peacemaker and unifier during his half-hour speech, his tone was often sharply partisan. He repeated false claims from his campaign that other countries were emptying their prisons into America and voiced familiar grievances over his criminal prosecutions.

With Biden seated nearby, Trump issued a stinging indictment of his predecessor’s policies from immigration to foreign affairs.

“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people,” Trump said.

Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration – including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg – had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.

Trump said he would send astronauts to Mars, prompting Musk – who has long talked about colonizing the planet – to raise his fists.

Trump vowed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and repeated his intention to take back control of the Panama Canal, one of several foreign policy pronouncements that have caused consternation among US allies.

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