Consider This from NPR - With A Second Term, Trump Would Take His Immigration Crackdown Further

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

Immigration is one of the main things Americans will be voting on in November. And many are currently unhappy with the situation at the US Southern Border, which is widely described as a crisis.As Donald Trump runs for another term, he's hoping to leverage that discontent just as he did in 2016.An across-the-board crackdown on immigration was one of the signature policies of the Trump presidency. In a second term, he's promising to go even further.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Donald Trump was barely 200 words into the speech launching his first bid for the White House when he turned to an idea that would become central to his presidency. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. Immigration. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.

Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly equated immigrants to criminals, and he pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration at the southern border, which of course gave birth to his signature slogan. Build that wall. Build that wall. Build that wall. But Trump also ran on sharp cuts to legal immigration, cuts that would fundamentally reshape U.S. immigration policy and potentially violate its constitution. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the

United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. And when Trump won the presidency, he got to work quickly to implement them. This is border security. On the fifth day of his presidency, he signed an executive order that would build his border wall. And then two days after that... We begin tonight with breaking news. Lawyers saying dozens and dozens of travelers are being detained right now at New York's JFK Airport. This as a result of President Trump's controversial executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The first version of Trump's travel ban went into effect near instantaneously,

when people were already in the air en route to the United States. In Trump's second year in office, the administration began separating parents who crossed the border illegally from their children. Here's Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in May 2018. Don't break the law. I mean, that's why they're separated, because they're breaking the law. They're coming across the border and they're breaking the law. In the United States, if you break the law, you go to jail and you're separated from your family.

It shouldn't be any different for illegal immigrants. As of last year, the American Civil Liberties Union said that up to 1,000 children had still not been reunited with their parents. Now, Trump is running for office again. And immigration and vilification of immigrants is still a centerpiece of his pitch. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world.

They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. Consider this. An across the board crackdown on immigration was one of the signature policies of the Trump presidency. In a second term, he has promised to go even further. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Sunday, February 11th. It's Consider This from NPR. Throughout the election, we are taking a step back from time to time to look at what a second Trump term would look like in different policy areas. And today, we're going to talk about immigration. Immigration is one of the main things Americans will be voting on in November. And many are currently unhappy with the situation at the U.S. southern border, which is widely described as a crisis.

Donald Trump is hoping to leverage this discontent just like he did back in 2016. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez covered immigration policy then and is following President Trump's campaign now. He joined me from Nevada, which just held its presidential caucuses. Hey, Franco. Hey, Scott. So if you define a unifying framework for Trump's immigration policies during his presidency, how would you describe it? I mean, this has been his bread and butter issue ever since, you know, he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and said those words that you just played at the top about not

bringing their best. I mean, he has been stoking fears and anger about immigrants from the beginning. He did it in his campaign, and he really carried it to when he was president. And you laid it out very well. I mean, he introduced some of the harshest policies the country has ever seen. The border wall, the travel ban, refusing asylum to migrants coming at the border. That was Title 42, of course. Remain in Mexico. People had to stay in Mexico as they awaited asylum proceedings. And of course, there was the zero tolerance policy, as you said, family separation. And that just led to a national scandal when thousands of kids were being separated.

And when you look at what Trump was trying to do, did these policies work? Did they reduce immigration to this country? Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the toughest questions I get asked about Trump's immigration policies. I mean, I think it's fair to say that the results were mixed. It did stop migrants for a bit. You know, historically, though, that happens when almost any new policy is introduced. Smugglers kind of wait to get a feel for it. But these numbers are cyclical and smugglers eventually adjust. And they did for Trump too, even after some of these harshest policies. Child separation was back in 2018. And it was only months later that the numbers started going up again. And then in early 2019, Trump was just furious with record levels of migration. I mean, do you remember all those firings at DHS?

You pointed out Kirstjen Nielsen. Well, she resigned under this pressure when Trump wanted to get tougher. I mean, he talks a lot on the campaign now about how everything was hunky-dory, that there wasn't problems on the border. But that's not really true. It's not really true at all. There were a lot of problems. And immigration has continued to be a big political issue. And he's talking a lot about it as he runs again. He's often at times, as we heard, using historically fascist language to talk about this issue. When it comes to policies, what do we know about what Trump would want to do if he returns to the White House? He's expected to return to many of these policies that we've been talking about. But, you know but he's also talking about expanding them.

He's promised the biggest deportation operation in America, a return to remain in Mexico, an expanded travel ban. He wants ideological screenings to root out sympathizers of Hamas and extremist groups. He's talked about ending birthright citizenship. And Scott, even when he was pressed last year about restarting the zero tolerance policy, that family separations, you know, he wouldn't rule it out. Well, when you have that policy, people don't come. If the family hears that they're going to be separated, they love their family. They don't come. So I know it sounds harsh. Franco, there is an interesting dynamic here that's worth talking about for a few moments, because even though the rhetoric of the Biden administration is obviously way different than

the Trump administration when it comes to immigration, but I think it surprised a lot of people that the Biden administration kept a lot of Trump border policies in place, and they've really gotten criticized for that by Biden's own base. Yeah, Latino advocates have really, really been angry about that. I mean, Biden did end the travel ban. He stopped building of the wall, at least temporarily, you know, and he introduced legislation that would legalize millions of people here illegally. But he kept Title 42. He actually defended it in court for more than a year as advocates tried to shut it down. And then later, recently, a few months ago, he's even started building more wall. And kind of as you point out, you know, things are really

starting to get crazy that Biden is starting to sound more and more like Trump. He's talking about shutting the border down and suspending asylum. And a lot of this came to a head this past week when you saw a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate that would deal with a lot of these immigration issues. Biden came out and supported it. But then you saw it collapsed, mostly because Trump weighed in, urging Republicans to kill it. This is something Trump bragged about. A lot of the senators are trying to say respectfully they're blaming it on me. I said, that's okay. Please blame it on me.

Please. Because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill. Franco, what is Trump in his camp thinking here? Why is he willing to attach himself to the collapse of a piece of legislation trying to fix something that there is broad support for fixing in this country. I mean, it's politics. It's very much politics. I mean, this is such a bad issue for Biden. Polls show voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue. And it's something that really, really excites the Republican base.

And recently, it's looking more like the general electorate also is concerned about the borders. You have Democratic governors and mayors calling for Biden to do more. I mean, in strong, strong language. I mean, this whole issue just helps Trump politically. I mean, the biggest case that he is making in Iowa, in New Hampshire, here in Nevada, is that only he can fix the border, that they need to return to his policies. So he doesn't really want Biden to do it before he can, or he doesn't want people thinking that Biden can do it. You mentioned you're talking to us from Nevada. You're there covering the Republican caucuses, which Trump just won easily. This is a state with

a lot of Latino voters. Immigration is a big issue in Nevada. What did you hear from Latino voters? Yeah, I mean, like a lot of Americans, Latino voters are very concerned about Trump's language. I mean, you have so many mixed families here with loved ones who are undocumented. And this idea, this talk of mass deportations is causing a lot of fear and anxiety. But I mean, I got to tell you, Scott, I was also surprised to hear more voices, Latino voices, advocating for stronger borders. They were talking about concerns of competition, you know, other immigrants crossing in line, telling me that a lot of the people crossing the border aren't even Latinos. And that was, this is kind of a first for me. I mean, you hear some of this in Miami, you know, a different type of, you know, Latino electorate. But hearing it here where there are a lot of, you know, Latin American, South American, Central Americans, it was surprising to hear that kind of voice and that kind of openness. that he won the caucuses. It was an interesting day for him. The day began with Supreme Court oral arguments tied to whether or not Trump should be allowed on the ballots due to January 6th.

Did Trump talk about immigration in his victory speech? Yeah. I mean, another surprise was how short his speech was. I mean, it was actually only 12 minutes. I mean, Trump usually goes on a lot longer than that. But again, immigration is such a big issue. Border is such a big issue. So it was, you know, a central part of the, you know, the victory speech, you know, and he used a lot of the invasion type language, you know, playing off the fears of immigrants and sending, you know, the worst of the worst, you know, that we've heard all along. You know, he's promising to, you know, clamp down on the border. But again, you know, he's stoking those fears and anger about, you know, what people feel about migration. And

I think it shows what we're going to continue to hear from the former president over the course of the next year. NPR's Frank Ordonez joining us from Nevada, where he's covering the presidential campaign. Thanks for talking to us. Thanks, Scott. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan and was edited by Courtney Dorning and Megan Pratz. Our executive producer is Sammy Yedigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.