The NPR Politics Podcast - How Trump's immigration policy has evolved

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

After campaigning on a platform to curtail illegal immigration to the United States, President Trump has shifted federal immigration policy to severely limit all forms of immigration. We look at what's happened, and what the impacts have been.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.This podcast was produced and edited by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In 2024, President Trump ran on a platform of reducing illegal immigration. But now that he's in office, that policy is expanded to limiting almost all forms of immigration, legal or otherwise. We're going to discuss how that's playing out on the ground and in the midterms. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Jimenez. And I'm Hamanabustia and I cover immigration. And I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. And Heman, I want to start big picture here. Take us through how, immigration policy broadly has changed since President Trump took office.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the important broad things to remember is that this is no longer about primarily going after people who entered the country illegally. The Trump administration has taken a very broad approach to tackling different corners of the immigration system. And so that has then resulted in people who came to the country through legal means. like temporary protected status, for example, losing that status. You know, at huge numbers, there are people who came on legal visas to work and study in the U.S. and lost those legal permissions, either because they were revoked or because the processing

times have just been so slow that people have kind of waded out and then ended up without status. You know, there's a wide range of people that have been affected, and that has really increased the scope of what this administration has been able to do. We're going to talk a little bit more about the politics of how this expanded policy plays out with Americans, but I do want to just center in on the quantifiable a little bit, too, because this is an administration that came in with really lofty goals on the amount of people they wanted to deport specifically. Can you tell us a little bit more just by the numbers in terms of how we can describe what we've seen from an immigration perspective in the second Trump term at this point? Right. So since Trump has come into office, crossings at the U.S. southern border with Mexico have been greatly reduced. So just one example of this is in July about 12,000 people crossed the border as opposed to over 100,000 in 2024 that same month. So that's just one example. We've also seen other numbers increase. So the rate of people who are in immigration detention is currently at some of the highest. levels that has ever been that has stayed pretty steady at around 60,000. The last two months, July and August, DHS has announced that in those two months each, about 50,000 people have been

arrested. And so we are seeing this administration, you know, really ramp up its capacity to be able to make more arrests, to be able to put more people in immigration detention, hold those people for longer periods of time, and then remove them to more countries, either their own country, or a third country somewhere where they're not from. Franco, how is the White House talking about their immigration enforcement efforts these days? I mean, the White House says they're carrying out the promises that Trump made during the campaign. You know, Trump promised a mass deportation program. Trump promised to take on, you know, some of these things that Jimenez is talking about,

things like temporary protective status. And he said he was going to take on, you know, birthright citizenship. I mean, I think this is kind of a natural evolution of what we've been seeing since the beginning. of this second administration, starting from securing the border to very aggressive internal enforcement. And obviously, it goes much farther than that. And again, you know, back on the campaign trail, which I followed Trump along on, you know, he didn't just talk about this being an issue about the border. He didn't just talk about this being an issue of national security. In his words, it was about protecting the fabric of the country. He said it many times at many different places.

You know, and he would say that that is the most important issue facing the country, bigger than the economy, bigger than inflation. And again, I think that speaks to some of the stuff that Jimenez is talking about, about reshaping the immigration system. Because in the end, I think this is really a debate about what the immigration system should look like and who should be allowed to live and work here. You know, there are sectors of the conservative base that still don't think the administration has gone far enough. And so the administration does need to, you know, continue to ramp up what it promised that it was going to do. Other parts of the Republican base say that it's gone too far in some instances. And people that normally wouldn't have been targeted for immigration enforcement are getting swept up in this. And then, of course, you have a wide variety of different stakeholders, you know, business owners, the agriculture sector, you know, just like kind of all these different other groups that are putting different types of pressure.

on the administration to ease up or to take their business or their side into consideration for these policies. Well, it's interesting thinking about the politics of a lot of these policies is that as you start moving, as the scale gets bigger, as you start moving out of just policies that affect people who crossed over the border illegally or in the country without legal status and you start expanding all these other groups, I feel like that also expands the amount of people who are affected by these policies, right, whether either directly or indirectly, it feels like. Yeah, yeah. And I have heard from so many people just anecdotally and especially a lot of

U.S. citizens, I'll say, that have been affected by these policies, either because visa processing has slowed down, their employees need to be placed on 90-day leaves. You know, their spouses are stuck in another country. You know, they are having issues like accessing a specific type of benefit or a specific different type of program. And so, you know, this administration really has taken an all-of-government approach to how it is viewing immigration and it has really folded in different agencies to, you know, really look at their programs and see who qualifies and who is a part of this and slow down other parts, just to make sure it's all kind of reaching that broader goal of slowing it down. I mean, it's that point that Jimenez's making about affecting so many

U.S. citizens, whether spouses or parents or children of undocumented immigrants, is one of the reasons why this is an issue that in some ways is hurting Trump, even though it's his signature issue, among Latinos who he had really gained, you know, really a foothold in the last election, he's lost a lot of that support. And I think it's because of the issues that Jimenez laying out right there. Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking back to this episode that we had on the pot earlier this year involving, I think, a focus group in Arizona, where a lot of these swing voters, this critical electoral group of made up of people who are in the country legally, a majority of them said that immigration raids had in some way impacted their day-to-day lives.

So these are not people who even would be targeted by these raids, but still they were coming into contact or in some way were being affected by them. That was really shocking to me. That said, it feels like right now, Franco, immigration doesn't feel like necessarily the defining issue of this midterm election and the way that it seemed like it might be in January earlier. year after the shooting of multiple American citizens in Minnesota. I guess I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Do you agree with that? And why do you think that is if so? Well, I mean, I certainly agree with you and don't think it's the same level of attention that we saw at the

beginning of the administration when he was really ramping up the enforcement activities. You know, and I think it makes sense that we are not hearing it as much. I mean, that was partially their plan. I mean, you mentioned the U.S. citizens that died. in some of these demonstrations who were shot by border patrol agents and the frenzy that it caused and the criticism of the administration and, you know, concerns about the enforcement tactics that were taken. The Trump administration made it very clear that they wanted to kind of pull out of the headlines for a while. But I don't think this issue is going away at all. I mean, Trump jokes, you know, in recent weeks and months that, you know, he's solved the border issue. So it's much harder to kind of run a campaign on that issue.

But, you know, this was, this is and frankly will continue to be, you know, President Trump's top domestic issue. It's his signature issue. Tom Holman, who is Trump's borders are here at the White House, was here yesterday. And he even said, you know, this is why Trump was elected to the White House. I mean, it is still a huge issue even heading into these midterms. And that's why I think you're starting to hear more about it, maybe in a different kind of way than earlier in this administration. But that's why Tom Holman was out. That's why Stephen Miller has been out recently talking about trying to knock down the numbers on TPS.

So this, I think, is going to be much more ramped up in the coming weeks and, you know, possibly even the next two days as Trump kind of makes his pitch to the American voter in Dallas at the, you know, midterm convention. And there's a really interesting kind of like, you know, dual timeline happening right now where everything that Franco is saying is true. We have these Republicans going on stage. We are going to, we're hearing more top White House officials touting this on the White House line. While at the same time, it is like this afternoon where there's still a lot of confusion over what is happening with the TPS for 170,000 people from El Salvador. So, you know, DHS has issued statement to reporters. saying that there will be an announcement made at, quote, an appropriate time. But, you know, the deadline is today for people's work permits to expire. That's 170,000 people with connections to U.S. citizen businesses, to spouses, to kids that for weeks leading up to this date specifically have not known if they are going to be able to continue working and living in this country. I mean, Franco, midterm elections are generally more localized than presidential years just because, there isn't the U.S. President on the ballot. Are there places specifically that you think potentially immigration could play a bigger role than others in this midterm cycle? Yeah, I mean,

Trump is not on the ballot. That's definitely for sure. I mean, although oftentimes this is kind of a referendum of the president. Let me just say that first. But absolutely, Miles, I mean, this is going to be an issue in certain states more than others. I'd say Texas, for example, where Ken Paxson is running against James Telerico. I think that's probably the most obvious issue, considering the border politics there, continue to be, you know, deeply embedded in the electorate. Very interesting. And this race is because how particularly competitive, you know, Democrats see an opportunity because of what we were talking about earlier. And the high number of Latinos have been turned off by Trump on immigration and trying to kind of exploit that. Also, North Carolina, very similarly, where Roy Cooper is running against Michael Watley, the Republican. also a large Latino population and the Democrats are trying to make, you know, the debate about the consequences of Trump's enforcement policies. Another interesting one is Maine. I mean, it's not the biggest immigration state, but it is a good state to watch where Republican Susan Collins, the incumbent is running against Troy Jackson. But Susan Collins, in this case, represents a more moderate Republican constituency. It's not the typical MAGA voter.

So this is going to be kind of a test of how some Republicans in competitive states may be actually trying to distance themselves from some of Trump's more aggressive tactics, more of those aggressive elements that you were talking about earlier, miles, where U.S. citizens were killed in protests and demonstrations. Okay, let's take a quick break and more on how the Trump administration is changing immigration policy in just a moment. And we're back. So, Homena, you have some new reporting on how immigration court hearings have been used. changing lately. Talk to us a little bit, I guess just start with what these court hearings generally are and then talk us through what you're seeing on the ground. Yeah. So immigration court, as I've said on this pod before, it lives within the Justice Department. That is relevant because you know, that means it's not a part of the judiciary branch of government technically is under

direction. The attorney general, therefore the president. An immigration court is where an immigrant who is in the country without legal status, might be essentially summoned to appear to kind of make the case why they should not be deported. And in immigration court, most people don't have attorneys. Some people do. There's always a prosecutor represented by immigration and customs enforcement lawyer. And then there's an immigration judge that ultimately will make the decision on if someone should be removed or not. Now, I've been tracking a lot of things when it comes to the reshaping of immigration courts under the Trump administration. But I think last week I got a really weird tip.

And that weird tip came from a few attorneys in the Washington, D.C. area. So Maryland and Virginia. And they told me that they had some people come to their offices, you know, with these notices to appear. But then the notices to appear told them to go to in-person hearings at locations that are not immigration courts. Huh. So where were these people then told to go? So one is actually the headquarters for the executive office for immigration review, which is the agency that does immigration courts in Falls Church, Virginia. But typically that building doesn't do in-person like courtroom style hearings.

And the second one is actually the headquarters for the federal emergency management agency in D.C. Okay. And what happened when these people? showed up at these places? It kind of depended. So first of all, you needed to make sure you got your notice. I identified two cases in which people never actually got a notice by mail and instead used an application, like an app on their phone that kind of scrapes through the court data, and it sent them like a notification that their court date had been changed. Other people did get their notice in the mail, and thus were able to find attorneys. Once attorneys had entered themselves in as representing the client, the cases got rescheduled.

Okay. And so you've got basically, this is, it seems like a pretty big part of due process is these people getting a chance, basically, to make their case. But what you're saying here is that the places where they would do that were changed kind of last minute. And in some cases, it seems like people may not have even known that the location was changing. Yes. So they may not have even known.

And then if they did know, they had to drive several hours across state lines to then go to this hearing where I have heard in many instances, including this morning, that they appeared before an immigration judge that was appearing remotely back at the immigration court where they normally would have been. So today, the example was Baltimore. A lot of people that normally appear at the Baltimore immigration court instead drove several hours this morning to the FEMA office in D.C. went into a conference room where they appeared before a judge that was sitting in Baltimore. That's the part that I find very fascinating because, I mean, the immigration system, the backlog of these cases we've talked about a lot, that it's just years and years and years and long. And this is

one of the things that this administration and past administrations has been trying to tackle for a long time. So I kind of get the idea of maybe opening up and having hearings in other places so that you can process more people. But the fact that these cases were still being held by an immigration judge in Baltimore, that is very eyebrow raising. So then I guess the question I have for you, Homena, is like, why? Does anyone know why this seems to be happening now? So then it gets even more confusing. So I asked the Justice Department why and if these were new hearing locations. And they didn't confirm that these were new hearing locations. Usually there will be a public announcement that there's going to be a new building or that they're closing a building and how cases are going to be

affected. So hypothetically, we're opening a new court in D.C. or a new space in D.C. cases from Baltimore are going to get moved over. That way, people kind of know what to look for. That has not been done. And they have not confirmed that. The other interesting thing is they did say they kind of have the ability to open up new spaces. Again, without confirming that, these specific addresses are new spaces. And then the other thing that's really interesting is the Department of Homeland Security. So DHS, which oversees ICE, seems to be playing a little bit of a larger role in managing these spaces.

So FEMA also under the Department of Homeland Security, I was told today that in spaces that are managed by DHS, ICE might be a lot more involved in the security and in the process. of those spaces. So, you know, there is an ICE officer checking people in, taking them to their hearing room. Normally, that's not the role that ICE officers play in immigration court. So it is very confusing who is kind of running the ship here if these are spaces that are being requested by DHS, if they're being requested by DOJ, who is even running this? And to what extent is there a collaboration. And immigration attorneys would tell you that that automatically destroys any perceived notion that you're going to have a fair hearing if like essentially the prosecutor is collaborating

with the adjudicator, right, in this hearing that's supposed to be, you know, your chance to claim why you shouldn't be deported. But I guess when I hear about the idea of location, time changing, sending you hours away from the place where you could have gone, and if you don't make that, then you are basically on the fast track to being in the process to being deported. And then we have an administration who is saying that they want to deport as many people as absolutely humanly possible. Is this an intentional effort to get more people fast track towards deportation is what I'm trying to get at? I mean, there's a lot of pressure on immigration judges to move through more cases, to even

deny requests to, you know, from immigrants that need more time to maybe find a lawyer or like understand the paperwork. I've previously reported on the so-called mega-masters, just hundreds of cases being put on a judge's docket in a morning to really, like, move through them. And if people don't show up, that is pretty much a license for the immigration judge to give you an automatic order for removal. And so, you know, for the first time, we are seeing the pending caseload at DOJ drop, like be on a downward trend. but they're also doing a lot of things to speed through the cases and essentially fast-track deportation orders. Franco, before we go, President Trump has signaled that he's going to be doing more campaign events in the coming months. What else are you expecting to see today, this week from Republicans on this issue?

Yeah, I'm very, very curious to see how much Trump and other Republicans talk about this issue, how much they kind of embrace it. I don't think they're going to avoid it very much, except maybe, you know, for in some of those more moderate Republican states like Maine. But I think, you know, far and large that where President Trump goes, they're going to be talking about this. I mean, this is an issue that he can tout. It's an issue to talk about instead of the, you know, challenges that the economy, with the economy and with Iran, you know, this is something I expect will come up today in. and perhaps tomorrow as well. I think this could be an example of what we'll hear, you know, going on. I mean, this is one of the campaign themes, at least that Trump has already been pushing is this idea to ask his supporters to show up and vote because so often when Trump is not on the ballot, they don't show up. He's telling them to pretend that he's actually on the ballot. And this is an issue that his core supporters obviously care a lot about. So I do expect this is going to be an issue that we're going to hear more and more again, because, as always, it is his signature issue. Okay. Well, we can leave it there for today. And before we go, Heman, this is going to be your last time on the podcast because you are leaving in PR this week. So I just want to take a second and recognize the work that you have done for this network the last couple of years.

I feel lucky to have worked with you and to be able to do this podcast with you for the last few years. So thank you for everything and good luck. We're going to miss you. For those of you don't know, Miles and I sit right in front of each other. We do. We also just chat every day, all day. So I'm going to just come to an empty test next week. I'm a little shook up about it.

But I'll miss you. I'll miss both of you as well. 100%. Good luck. and go kick some more butt. Thank you. All right. I'm Miles Parks.

I cover voting. I'm Jimenez-Abusio, and I cover immigration. And I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.